CHAPTER II 



THE JOY OF COMPARATIVE SUCCESS 



. 

 j "Whom little will not, nothing will content." 



How satisfactory for our peace of mind, how nice for the 

 garden, and how salutary for our vanity, did we but 

 recognise that success in gardening conforms to no 

 standard, to no set rule, but is governed by a com- 

 parative test. But we don't ; hence heartburnings that 

 irritate and teach us to belittle our own modest achieve- 

 ments. Because the professional gardener, fully equipped 

 by his employer with every aid that garden craft can 

 suggest, grows Chrysanthemums 6 feet high and crowns 

 each with a huge, mop-headed bloom, shall we whimper 

 and whine and disparage our own though they are only 

 3 feet high, yet smothered in smaller blossom ? And 

 because his elaborate Orchid houses, teak-built, water- 

 tanked, and deftly shaded, produce plants with sixteen 

 spikes of bloom, shall we consign to the rubbish heap 

 ours that yield only six ? Or because by lavish expendi- 

 ture he gets Roses all the year round, and we only in 

 summer and autumn, shall we give up Rose-growing as 

 hopeless ? Why should we ? Is not the measure of 

 success found in the pleasure that ensues ? Most assuredly. 



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