14 FLOWER GARDENING 
ever has lost its usefulness or, it is discovered, 
never did have any to speak of. 
This is not the spirit that goes in for numerical 
satisfaction; numbers, and size, too, are of second- 
ary importance. It is the spirit that, little by little, 
room by room, equips a house with mellow old 
furniture having the air not so much of a collec- 
tion as of being an inseparable part of the home. 
How a garden may be accumulated can be no 
better illustrated than by telling just how one has 
thus been brought together. There came a day to 
an old place in the country when the last vestige of 
its golden garden age had disappeared. Not a 
link, unless it was the purple lilac on the west side 
of the house, bound the garden past with the pres- 
ent. Nor was there enough of the present to boast 
of—a narrow bed of spring bulbs on the east side of 
the house and on the western edge of the lawn a 
short row of “golden glow”; that was all that was 
worth mentioning. 
More flowers were needed; at least as many as 
in days long gone by, the waning glory of which 
was well remembered. ‘This was obvious one 
spring when winter scarcely had departed. Then 
came the thought: This is an old-fashioned house; 
why not an old-fashioned garden? 
Very likely an impatient soul would have 
endeavored to make an old-fashioned garden all at 
once, had he not been a creature of circumstances; 
forced to do what he could, not what he wanted to. 
The which was a blessing, for circumstance taught 
