GARDEN-CRAFT. 



external Nature's ways and means, and the first 

 simplicity of man's handling of them, carried to dis- 

 tinction. On one side we have Nature's "unpre- 

 meditated art " surpassed upon its own lines 

 Nature's tardy efforts and common elementary traits 

 pushed to a masterpiece. On the other side is the 

 callow craft of Adam's "'prentice han'," turned into 

 scrupulous nice-fingered Art, with forcing-pits, glass- 

 houses, patent manures, scientific propagation, and 

 the accredited rules and hoarded maxims of a host of 

 horticultural journals at its back. 



Or, to run still more upon fancy. A garden is a 

 place where these two whilom foes Nature and 

 man patch up a peace for the nonce. Outside 

 the garden precincts in the furrowed field, in the 

 forest, the quarry, the mine, out upon the broad 

 seas the feud still prevails that began as our first 

 parents found themselves on the wrong side of the 

 gate of Paradise. But 



" Here contest grows but interchange of love "- 



here the old foes have struck a truce and are leagued 

 together in a kind of idyllic intimacy, as is witnessed 

 in their exchange of grace for grace, and the crown- 

 ing touch that each puts upon the other's efforts. 



The garden, I have said, is a sort of " be- 

 tween ity " part heaven, part earth, in its sugges- 

 tions ; so, too, in its make-up is it part Nature, 

 part man : for neither can strictly say " I made the 

 garden " to disregard the other's share in it. True, 

 that behind all the contents of the place sits primal 



