PREFACE 



FOR many gardenless years I had been reading 

 of gardens, and not seldom seeing some of 

 them. The reading was mostly of the greater 

 gardens, the appearance of which more often 

 reflected the personal taste of the designer or the 

 gardener than the garden -love of the owner. 

 Indeed, the very sight of some gardens was irrita- 

 ting, because of their expensive elaboration. 



In one notable instance, the great formal garden 

 I repeatedly visited contained no suggestion of its 

 owner, and I came to think of it in the name of the 

 soft-voiced Scotchman who kept it growing and 

 glowing. In another garden, of which I kept for 

 some time a photographic record, the owner was 

 unsympathetic, unrelated; he was doing a garden 

 as part of his spending job as a rich man. 



But one garden that I saw told another story. 

 It had been started lovingly more than a gener- 

 ation before by a fine-spirited clergyman. With 

 his own hands he planted in it, and his daughter, 

 who Uved in it when I visited it, was adding her 

 ideals to those of her father in that yet growing 

 garden. This seemed altogether worth while. 



When it came my time to have a garden, it 



(vii) 



