18 THE WILD GARDEN. 
a fortnight in pleasure grounds, as now practised, is a great 
and costly mistake. We want shaven carpets of grass here 
and there, but what cruel nonsense both to men and grass it 
is to shave as many foolish men shave their faces! There 
are indeed places where they boast of mowing forty acres! 
Who would not rather see the waving grass with ae . 
flowers than a close shaven surface without a blossom? 
Imagine the labour wasted in this ridiculous labour of cutting 
the heads off flowers and grass. Let the grass grow till fit to 
cut for hay, and we may enjoy in it a world of lovely flowers 
that will blossom and perfect their growth before the grass 
has to be mown; more than one person who has carried out 
the ideas expressed in this book has waving lawns of feathery. 
grass where he used to shave the grass every ten days; a 
prairie of flowers where a daisy was not allowed to peep; and 
some addition to his hay crop as he allows the grass to 
grow till it is fit for that purpose. 
It is not only to places in which shrubberies, and planta- 
tions, and belts of grass in the rougher parts of the pleasure- 
ground, and shady moss-bordered wood-walks occur that these 
remarks apply. The suburban garden, with its single fringe 
of planting, may show like beauty, to some extent. It may 
have the Solomon’s Seal arching forth from a shady recess, 
behind tufts of the sweet-scented Narcissus, while in every 
case there may be wild fringes of strong and hardy flowers in 
the spring sun, and they cannot be cut off by harsh winds as 
when exposed in the open garden. What has already been 
stated is, I hope, sufficient to show to everybody the kind of © 
place that may be used for their culture. Wild and semi-wild 
places, rough banks in or near the pleasure-ground or flower- 
