234 OLD-FASHIONED GARDENING 



What prompted the old gardeners to do this, or to 

 choose that, or to reject the other? 



Of course we may say that they chose what they 

 liked, and did what they believed in, and rejected 

 what they did not admire; but behind their admira- 

 tion and their belief and their dislike, what? Why 

 was "this" pleasing, "that" expedient, and "the 

 other" disapproved? With two hundred years wiped 

 out, in other words, and ourselves back at the begin- 

 ning of the eighteenth century, what is this complexity 

 which we call life, like? And how does it react on 

 us and our garden making, among other things? 



First and foremost and most striking, I think, of 

 all the changes which mark the regression, is the change 

 in the resources of the home itself. There is an utter 

 lack of resource to be found outside the home; each 

 family establishment is a unit, and a complete one in 

 and by itself. There is almost no urban group of 

 such establishments, with their interdependence and ex- 

 change of commodities and service; but instead each 

 household relies upon itself and its own resources for 

 practically everything except defense in time of danger 

 — and even for this too, many times. 



It is difficult to see ourselves under such conditions 

 — we, whose boasted independence does not now, as a 

 matter of fact, extend even to the limits of our own 

 dooryards. Back there in 1700 there are no grocers 



