ACCUMULATING A GARDEN 79 
One more east border, the longest of all, an- 
other year; the addition of some small ones, mak- 
ing sixteen altogether, and experience piled upon 
experience—that is the rest of the story. Maybe 
it is not yet a garden that has been accumulated, 
but it illustrates a principle even if it is no more 
es an aggregation of loosely related hardy bor- 
ers. 
The cost? Nota great deal more than the labor 
of two hands in leisure hours. The small expense 
for purchased plants and seed was scarcely missed 
because of its distribution through the years, while 
the amount of money paid out for hired help 
was so slight as to be practically negligible. As 
the garden stands today, it would take hundreds 
of dollars to duplicate the plants, let alone the ex- 
pense of planning and planting if these were done 
by a professional. 
And the pleasure of it. In all of flower garden- 
ing there is nothing more charming than this gath- 
ering with the years and learning with the years. 
You never get to the end, of course. But who 
wants to? A garden is not made to be finished 
within the span of any one human life—unless, 
perchance, it is the decree of wealth that it shall 
be. It is something of cumulative growth—some- 
thing that expands with its age and the age of 
the one whose hand has shaped and reshaped it 
and who always secretly hopes that when he is gone 
there shall be no cessation of expansion, 
