THE JOYOUS ART OF GARDENING 



These are a few instances of its use, but ingenuity is a 

 faculty which grows by exercise, and the city yard offers prob- 

 lems enough to keep it in good condition. 



I know one city garden half the size of the ordinary back 

 yard which yet boasted a tiny pergola that commanded the 

 whole domain, and here on summer evenings supper was 

 served on a table that swung from the overhead beams — a 

 table narrow enough to be carried laden through the doorway. 

 There were candles in sconces against the walls, a Japanese 

 lantern overhead, and, near enough for the lights to touch it, 

 a tiny fountain — and all this in a yard many people would 

 have thought impossible. It was small and shaded, with 

 little sunhght and poor soU. Near the house there was the 

 tiniest terrace, brick-floored, and divided from the garden 

 by a little balustrade. The pergola was hardly more than 

 eight feet long, in a little alcove of the garden, a spot which 

 a less-enlightened soul might have used for a closet for tools 

 or junk. 



A place where one may sit in peace out of doors uninspected 

 by one's neighbors is in the city a pecuUar happiness, and by 

 no means so difficult to arrange as it seems. In this matter 

 of seclusion, barriers of shrubs are futile, since it is from high 

 above that the batteries of eyes are trained; wherefore over- 

 head defense is effective with the effectiveness of a parasol 

 against the sun or an umbrella against the shower. If one 

 wishes comfort in his garden and not a great number of flowers 

 to care for, it would be easy to make into an arbor the whole 

 lower end of his yard by raising the fence-posts until they 

 were high enough for his overhead trellis. On this may grow 

 wild grape, wistaria, or, for hasty defense, gourds. The arbor 

 would be brick-floored, except for a narrow marginal bed at 

 the back for violets and other shade-loving plants, with seats 



