THE GARDEN AT HQME 



Gardening, like golf, is a dull business to the looker- 

 on, but reveals a little heaven on earth to the worker. 

 One hears of men and women taking up this and giving 

 up that ; pleasure has cloyed, the problems are mastered 

 that, not understood, allured, and from within the pros- 

 pect is not so enchanting as from without. But who 

 ever heard of anyone giving up gardening after once 

 starting it in earnest ? Not only is this improbable, but 

 it is scarcely possible. There is no finiteness about gar- 

 dening ; one cannot say after a year or two spent among 

 the flowers that their secrets are made plain, their likes 

 and dislikes understood. Their ways are inscrutable, 

 their behaviour is often disappointing, the future always 

 uncertain, and the issue ever in doubt. And so there 

 hovers over the garden a glamour born of wonder- 

 ment, sustained by mystery, and not dispelled by 

 experience. 



The gardener never knows ; he can only hope, and 

 live in hope ; and surely this is the finest tonic for 

 all of us in this topsy-turvy, workaday world. The 

 flowers that flourished last summer may languish the 

 next, the border that was a failure last year may this 

 year be a great success. One season's experience, helpful 

 though it may be, is no guarantee of success for another, 

 and one year's failure leaves the following year's issue 

 still in doubt. In truth, one can foretell the future in 

 gardening as little as one can prophesy next week's 

 weather. The spell of a great mystery holds it. And 



