THE COTTAGE GARDEN 



This, of course, is not the reason of the weedy garden 

 of the poor spirit, the reason for that is obvious : the 

 poor spirit never rejoices, and to grow and care for 

 flowers is a great way of rejoicing. There's many a 

 man sows poems in the spring who never wrote a line 

 of verse : his flowers are his contribution to the world's 

 voice ; united in expressions of joy, the writer, the 

 painter, the singer, the flower-grower are all part of one 

 great poem. 



The average person who passes a cottage garden is 

 more moved by the senses than the imagination ; he 

 or she drinks deep draughts of perfume, takes long com- 

 fort to the eyes from the fragrant and coloured rood of 

 land. They do not cast this way and that for curious 

 imaginings ; it might add to their pleasure if they did 

 so. There are men who find the whole of Heaven in a 

 grain of mustard seed ; and there are those who, in all 

 the pomp and circumstance of a hedge of Roses, find 

 but a passing pleasure to the eye. 



We, who take our pleasure in the Garden of England, 

 who feast our eyes on such rich schemes of colours she 

 affords, have reason to be more than grateful to those 

 who encourage the cottage gardener in his work. It 

 is from the vicarage, rectory, or parsonage gardens that 

 most encouragement springs ; it is the country clergy- 

 man and his wife who, in a large measure, are responsible 

 for the good cottage gardening we see nearly every- 

 where. These, and the numberless societies, combine 

 to keep up the interest in gardening and bee-keeping, 

 to which we owe one of our chiefest English pleasures. 

 The good garden is the purple and fine linen of the poor 

 man's life ; poets, philosophers, and kings have praised 

 and sung the simple flowers that he grows. Wordsworth 

 for instance, sings of a flower one finds in nearly every 

 cottage garden : 



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