THE GARDEN BOOK OF CALIFORNIA 



may become too artificial in our desires, and thus lose much 

 of joy in the life close to Nature. 



Enthusiast as I am for the naturalistic methods of gar- 

 dening, I should not yet be guilty of urging the owner of 

 a twenty-five-foot lot to find a corner for wild flowers. I 

 should feel so sorry for the wild flowers. On the 

 whole I do not think I shall have any advice to proffer 

 any one, regarding a garden of any sort, on a twenty-five- 

 foot lot! Even the fifty-foot frontage of the average city 

 home is better left an open breathing space with a bit of 

 grass, and a green shrub or two on its borders than any 

 more elaborate gardening. 



Neither can one aspire to grassy slopes and long sweeps 

 of gracefully outlined paths and roadways, when his plot 

 of ground is either circumscribed in extent, or possesses no 

 distinctive features except a dead-levelness suitable as a 

 site for the erection of some kind of architecture more or 

 less artistic. 



We cannot all own estates nor great gardens, but a good 

 many of us would come nearer to doing so if we were not so 

 constantly striving to "save time" (of which we may have 

 an eternity) , by making unceasing effort to be very conven- 

 ient to business and pleasure, school and church, and our 

 next neighbors — and making cities, when we belong to the 

 country. Land is comparatively cheap in California, and 

 home-builders should secure more land for their homes since 

 a genuine home can hardly be made on a small city lot- — it 

 is more apt to be an abiding-place only. 



[1281 



