1 78 GARDEN-CRAFT. 



A garden is pre-eminently a place to indulge in- 

 dividual taste. " Let us not be that fictitious thing," 

 says Madame Roland, " that can only exist by the 

 help of others soyons nous ! " So, regardless of 

 the doctors, let me say that the best general rule that 

 I can devise for garden-making'is : put all the beauty 

 and delightsomeness you can into your garden, get 

 all the beauty and delight you can out of your garden, 

 never minding a little mad want of balance, and think 

 of proprieties afterwards ! Of course, this is to 

 " prove naething," but never mind if but the garden 

 enshrine beauty. To say this is by no means to allow 

 that the garden is the fit place for indulging your 

 love of the out-of-the-way ; not so, yet a little sign 

 of fresh motive, a touch of individual technique, a 

 token, however shyly displayed, that you think for 

 yourself is welcome in a garden. Thus I know of a 

 gardener who turned a section of his grounds into a 

 sort of huge bear-pit, not a sunk pit, but a mound 

 that took the refuse soil from the site of his new 

 house hollowed out, and its slopes set all round with 

 Alpine and American garden-plants, each variety 

 finding the aspect it likes best, and the proportion of 

 light and shade that suits its constitution. This is, of 

 course, to "intrude embankments " into a garden with 

 a vengeance, yet even Mr. Robinson, if he saw it, 

 would allow that, as in love and war, your daring in 

 gardening is justified by its results, where, as George 

 Herbert has it 



" Who shuts his hand, hath lost its gold ; 

 Who opens it, hath it twice told." 



