THE TECHNICS OF GARDENING. 179 



A garden is, first and last, a place for flowers ; 

 but, treading in the old master's footsteps, I would 

 devote a certain part of even a small garden to 

 Nature's own wild self, and the loveliness of weed- 

 life. Here Art should only give things a good start 

 and help the propagation of some sorts of plants not 

 indigenous to the locality. Good effects do not 

 ensue all at once, but stand aside and wait, or help 

 judiciously, and the result will be a picture of rude 

 and vigorous life, of pretty colour and glorious form, 

 that is gratifying for its own qualities, and more for 

 its opposition to the peacefulness of the garden's 

 ordered surroundings. 



A garden is the place for flowers, a place where 

 one may foster a passion for loveliness, may learn 

 the magic of colour and the glory of form, and 

 quicken sympathy with Nature in her higher moods. 

 And, because the old-fashioned garden more con- 

 duces to these ends than the modern, it has our 

 preference. The spirit of old garden-craft says : 

 11 Do everything that can be done to help Nature, to 

 lift things to perfection, to interpret, to give to your 

 Art method and distinctness." The spirit of the 

 modern garden-craft of the purely landscape school 

 says : " Let be, let well alone, or extemporise at 

 most. Brag of your scorn for Art, yet smuggle her 

 in, as a stalking-horse for your halting method and 

 non-geometrical forms." 



And, as we have shown, Art has her revenges as 

 well as Nature ; and the very negativeness of this 

 school's Art-treatments is the seal to its doom. 



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