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T CAN never be thankful enough that nature be- 

 gan the trees of our Wilderness garden annex 

 so many years before we ourselves were planned. 

 Here we found, ready-made, great pines, large and 

 small hemlocks, Italian-like cedars, birches draped 

 with wild grapevine, poplars, sumach and bitter- 

 sweet. Under these were treasures of columbine, 

 hepatica, violets and bloodroot. It seems almost a 

 necessity to have a natural stage setting of matured 

 and half -grown trees for a garden, for perfunctory 

 beds of casual flowers do not constitute a garden. 

 Then, too, the arrangement, composition of Nature, 

 is almost infallible — Whistler to the contrary. 

 Study a bit of wild brushwood or sequestered forest, 

 then go home in chastened spirit to try to humbly 

 follow out the natural. Notice how the goldenrod 

 and purple aster intermingle. Could anything be 

 better art? 



113 



