Robin Hood's Barn 



he who runs may read ; and I welcome any guest 

 who comes armed with box and trowel. There 

 are many plants that do not coimt — sweet-rocket, 

 garden heliotrope, the yellow primrose. These 

 are current coin. But the same sweet-william 

 that I hoarded in its bloom, I can now hft 

 eagerly; and the same Iceland poppies. The 

 peach-blow canterbury-bells where a rash hand 

 laid earlier would have routed my politeness, I 

 can now spade up recklessly in great clumps each 

 one of which when wedged apart would fiU a 

 border. Nor is the seed-bed, the inner sanctuary 

 now inviolate. Here dwell mysteries, plants that 

 have never flowered. Is the plant one lifts the 

 Rocky Mountain colimibine? Is the one that 

 stays the usual dingy double pm-ple ? No matter. 

 Somewhere next June it will be expanding its 

 long spurs and pendulous buds. 



So to salve my pride I have come to this con- 

 clusion, that what may seem my stinginess is not 

 really that. Plants from my garden you may 

 have in plenty. You may even dig them your- 

 self and I shall not look. I, too, will go uncon- 

 cernedly about my tasks. And flowers you may 



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