188 A LITTLE GARDEN THE YEAR ROUND 



food? What joy would there be in the dig- 

 ging, the seeding, the cultivating if every cauli- 

 flower stood to us for cookery, every cucumber 

 as a pickle and every lettuce as a salad! Of 

 course with the proper appetite expected of 

 every normal one of us that our table should be 

 laden with home grown things gives us a sense 

 of satisfaction. But is that not quite as much 

 from the pride we take in our ability to grow 

 all these delicacies, as from the knowledge that 

 they will serve as space-fillers for empty man? 

 With the coming of May I always think of 

 Hawthorn boughs laden with billowy white 

 blossoms — here and there a pink-domed shrub 

 — ^when the May days return; and yet there 

 are no Hawthorns where my garden grows! 

 That I have taken from the poets, and have 

 given it to the cabbages, the butter-beans, the 

 radishes and parsnips as grace to their utility. 

 But it is not, gentle reader, that I would neg- 

 lect the vegetables to go a-Maying! Instead, 

 the contemplation of everything lovely in na- 

 ture lends to an enthusiasm for the rows, and 

 hills and trellises of To-morrow's table-things. 

 In fact I make sure that there is reasonable 

 doubt of late frosts before I rush recklessly to 



