IN PRAISE OF GARDENING 



same nurseryman's agent has been about and sold to each 

 owner the same small evergreens. 



Very noteworthy it is, that those to whom the garden is a 

 source of vivid pleasure do a part or most of the work of it 

 themselves. This practice seems to be a necessary precursor 

 to the happiness. A garden may make incessant demands on 

 the time and energy and patience of its author — demands as 

 exacting and continuous as those of a child on its nurse or 

 mother, and yet, like the child, its very dependence makes it 

 the more beloved. 



For real enjoyment the garden must be considered as a 

 work of art, not as a "chore," and one's plants as friends and 

 intimates, not employees. A garden on a business basis is 

 another matter. It may yield a certain amount of pleasure 

 and satisfaction, but never the joy of a garden grown just for 

 itself. The plants must conform to certain standards; defi- 

 nite results are expected, and failure to attain these means 

 disappointment and loss. 



One may smile at a gypsy kettle filled with coleus, at a 

 boat marooned with its cargo of flowering plants in the midst 

 of a sun-scorched lawn, but none the less these express a defi- 

 nite, creative effort on the part of the author and are probably 

 the source of keen pride and enjoyment. The impulse is the 

 same as when the millionaire drags marble exedrse to an Adi- 

 rondack lodge and worries a rustic bungalow with a Florentine 

 well-head — and no more discreditable. 



One of the sweetest characteristics of a garden — chlefest, 

 I think, of its "1,000 delights"— is that its charm is wholly 

 unrelated to the amount of money spent upon it. The sim- 

 plest of little gardens may have more of this lovely and en- 

 dearing quality of charm than the most pretentious of estates. 

 For garden art for the sake of aggrandizement always misses 



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