CHEAP GARDENING 



CHEAPNESS is a relative term in everything, and 

 particularly in gardening, since a Daffodil bulb 

 may cost anything from a farthing to fifty guineas. 

 There is no doubt that gardening can be a very ex- 

 pensive amusement, now that it has become fashion- 

 able and millionaires have their rock gardens as well 

 as their motor-cars. Luckily, however, the expensive 

 gardens are not always the best. Indeed, very often 

 they are the worst. In gardening it is not the plant 

 that counts so much as the gardener; and very often 

 the plant that costs a guinea is no more beautiful than 

 the plant that costs nothing. Gardening may be 

 cheaper as well as more expensive than it has ever 

 been, provided the gardener is ready to take a little 

 trouble and to exercise a little seK-denial. 



Mr. W. P. Wright has lately published a book 

 ("Beautiful Gardens") in which he makes it his ob- 

 ject to show how a beautiful garden may be cheaply 

 made and maintained, and in his preface he deplores 

 the expensiveness of modern gardening. But, after 

 all, it does not matter very much to the true gardener. 

 He can console himself with the thought that all the 

 costly novelties, if they are good for anything, will 

 probably be cheap some day; and if it were not that 

 there are people ready to give large sums for them, 



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