94 THE LITTLE GARDEN 



farmhouse, while with me, who look at it and consider it with 

 constancy and tenderness, it sickens and dies. 



The word pruning can scarcely be applied to the cutting of 

 flowers. Yet so truly, if we cut judiciously in our borders, do we 

 prune as well as cut, that a word here must be said. Think, as 

 you cut one or two stalks of yomr delphiniums in full bloom, of 

 the appearance of what you leave. Consider, as you take a 

 dozen fine daisies from yom: plant or two of Shasta daisies, the 

 good you may do to the look of that plant as you cut. Take those 

 that droop too much, those whose stems have been broken near 

 the root by wind or rain. Thin a part of the plant where bloom 

 may be too thick. This type of cutting becomes pruning, not 

 for the health, the vigorous life of the plant, or for its f utiure yield 

 of flowers, as in the case of the flowering shrub, but for that other 

 harvest, the harvest of immediate, of instant beauty, which we 

 all desire, and which a careful flower-gatherer will always pro- 

 duce as he works. 



