CHAPTER XVI 



THE FLOWER GARDEN 



'1 he man who cheerfully sets the spade where his wife 

 directs, and lends himself willingly to her desires in the 

 flower garden, has in him the vital elements of good citizen- 

 ship and is a safe man to trust. Tim. 



H, for the return of the old- 

 fashioned flower garden ! Years 

 ago flowers were grown in bor- 

 ders rather than in beds box- 

 edged borders on each side of 

 a rear walk, or alongside a 

 fence or a wall or a building, 

 rilled with a profusion of old- 

 time favorites growing in a de- 

 lightfully informal mass of color 

 and variety. In those days the nightmare "beds" 

 (dug out of the lawn in round or fanciful shapes) 

 filled with geraniums or foliage plants (set straight 

 and exactly even all around), were not common. 



George H. Ellwanger, in The Garden's Story, 

 touches a tender spot in my heart when he says : 



"One passes many neglected farm-gardens along 

 the road. Here, an old locust and mock-orange 

 have been allowed to sprout at will : the blue iris 

 has crept outside the fence, with clumps of double 

 daffodils turned over by the plow and flung on to 

 the roadside. There is a jungle of stunted quinces 

 and blighted pear trees. The spreading myrtle 

 patch has usurped the place of what was once a 

 lawn; tall thistles, hog-weed, pig-weed and burdocks 



