A GARDEN DIARY 61 
acquaintance of so few people nowadays, that 
we had better make the most of him. Now 
fuss the good man detests, and change, merely 
for change’s sake, is undoubtedly one of the 
very worst forms of fuss. Like every other 
pursuit and following, horticulture no doubt 
has its battlefields, and those who go out upon 
them must expect charge and countercharge, 
rapid assault and varying vicissitude, like other 
heroes upon other battlefields. For me such 
combats, I am free to confess, have not even 
a vicarious charm; Peace being the only deity 
to whom I would willingly raise even the 
smallest of garden altars. With other out-of- 
door conditions we all aver that it is their 
stability, their adorable unchangeableness, which 
lends them in our eyes their most persistent 
charm. Why then are we not to look for the 
same charm in our gardens, which after all come 
nearest home? That it is a charm easy of attain- 
ment I were loth to asseverate, but that seems 
hardly a reason for not endeavouring to attain 
to it. It is in this direction at all events that 
my own private plottings and plannings propose 
to turn. If I must moil and delve; if I must 
plant, dig, and contrive now, it is with the fixed 
and fond determination of before long sitting 
resolutely down, and doing absolutely nothing! 
