In the Beginning 3 
and realized that months must elapse before I could remedy 
the mistakes. 
In fact my garden has been a natural growth of hardy con- 
stitution, else it could not have survived the shocks it has re- 
ceived. Planted in various latitudes, lying dormant years at 
a time, it has suffered every phase of misfortune and neglect, 
but has finally surmounted all difficulties and is now enjoying 
a beautiful resurrection. 
It is impossible to state when or where the germ was first 
planted, but it must have germinated and have had a long tap 
root at an early age; for, when six years old, in a burst of en- 
thusiasm, I declared one day, “When I grow up I mean to 
marry a gardener, then I shall have all the flowers I want, and 
I shall have morning glories running over the stovepipes.” 
As our house was not rich in stovepipes—being heated by an 
unpoetic furnace—it was evident that my imagination had 
already begun to riot in unconventional freedom. 
My florist propensities had scant opportunity in a city lot 
filled with a number of fruit trees, inconceivably big to young 
eyes. It is not a pleasure to recall my efforts to cultivate a 
narrow strip of ground that lay between a high brick wall and 
a six-foot board fence, unvisited by a ray of sunshine. I shall 
not linger upon those years when I tried to bring a bit of the 
woods into this north fern bed, where transplanted wild 
flowers scarcely survived a season. I used to walk up and 
down the narrow path looking wistfully for signs of my wild 
flowers which seldom came up. Yet this was a growing season 
for me; for unconsciously I learned the names and habits of 
the flora of southern Ohio, and my love of nature was expand- 
ing and thriving on starvation rations. Gradually I became 
acquainted with many cultivated flowers, known to me only 
through visits to greenhouses or in the gardens of neighbors 
having a southern exposure and no fruit trees. 
