THE USES OF ADVERSITY 49 



the ground is well warmed to that cozy, half-dry condi- 

 tion, not too dry nor yet too moist, suitable to hold and 

 feed hungry rootlets. Most of the annuals do not root 

 deeply, but live from day to day on sunshine and surface 

 moisture, in common with many other gay children of the 

 human species on earth. 



While we may indulge in the luxury of a pergola 

 draped with vines, one for each season, or have sunken 

 gardens or water gardens for show, the woman gardener, 

 with a strain of the feeling of the dandelion gatherer, 

 takes her genuine comfort in the border of old-fashioned 

 flowers. The flowers themselves are as curious and way- 

 ward as the folk of a country village, and their outlook 

 on life just as illogical. 



Annuals in general refuse to grow symmetrically, and 

 the botanist in search of freaks always finds his reward in 

 quaint variations of the reversions to an original type. 

 But the gentle housewife thinks of none of these things, 

 cherishing the notion that she is going gardening when 

 she puts on her sunbonnet, her leather gloves, and takes 

 her basket of tools a trowel, weeder, and clippers. 



Before this happy stage of action is reached, who can 

 tell what strategy has been practiced, what battles fought 

 with the goodman of the house, or the arch enemy of 

 things unconventional, the architect and the artistic land- 

 scape gardener*? It is not well to meet in open fray in 

 gardening any more than it is in nine tenths of the issues 



