A GARDEN DIARY 19 
altogether from any attempts at modification, 
which might lead to results so humiliating and 
so disastrous ? 
There are however more encouraging omens. 
Anyone who has observed how casual, how purely 
accidental are many of the natural variations of 
surface which nevertheless give us pleasure, has 
a right to ask himself whether the spade may 
not be allowed to produce in a few days what 
sun, wind, rain, and similar agents can achieve 
in a few years. I am inclined to think that it 
may, only it must be a spade with eyes, and if 
possible with a brain behind it, and both are 
unusual with spades. In any case wisdom ex- 
horts us to proceed very cautiously and modestly 
with all such changes. To be sure that in the 
first place they are called for, and in the second 
that they will suit with the features of our ground, 
and the scene in which it is set. Else, if we 
neglect these precautions, we too may come to 
swell the ranks of those who have made the very 
words “landscape gardening” and “landscape 
gardener ” sounds of terror to all discriminating 
and nature-loving ears. 
One of the least unsatisfactory ways of modify- 
ing one’s ground, and relieving its monotony, is, 
it seems to me, the “glade.” Glades may of 
course be of many forms, and may suggest many 
ideas. They may pierce through the dusky heart 
of a wood, or they may lie nakedly and stonily 
