A CARNIVAL OF GOLD 127 



the length and breadth of the little plantation. They 

 seem to have decided in some mute way to come all at 

 once and to make a festival of celestial yellows to echo 

 what wild life was doing along the highways. The color 

 notes shade from the palest canary hue, matching the 

 breast of a little finch that comes to sing in the locust 

 bower, and deepen and deepen to the bronze gold of the 

 lilies and the flames of the tritoma. 



None of these was planted with a view to garden color. 

 Indeed, the garden color faddist works in the spirit of an 

 artistic upstart who coldly sorts his seeds and plans as a 

 modiste does over a set of trimmings, or as a rug weaver 

 deliberates concerning a finished design to please the 

 fashion of the hour. Garden enthusiasts are born, and 

 garden architects are made. The first plant seeds in a 

 passion to bring to light treasured friends among flow- 

 ers, and the latter forget the individual in the pattern 

 that may fall upon the eye during blooming time. 



It is a happy chance when nature comes to the rescue, 

 as she does to the most careless planters. If the enthu- 

 siast has been generous in his choice, and far-seeing to 

 select flowers for the procession of the months, he can 

 depend on nature to keep garden color changing as the 

 prism of the rainbow. It will spread in beauty the rose 

 hues of June, shifting the kaleidoscope through the yel- 

 lows of midsummer, the flames of late August, and 

 mingling purple and crimson and gold when September 



