THE FUN OF MAKING GARDEN 73 
so with real pleasure. These methods undoubtedly 
rid the neighborhood of pin feathers and broilers 
but the neighbors must look to that. We garden. 
They run a hen roost; but our Christian duty 
is to look after our craft, and if in the sturdy 
industry of hoeing the garden and freeing it of 
weeds, one can incidentally have spring chickens 
on which to break one’s fast, so much the better. 
In a word, nothing discourages a true gardener. 
He turns impediments into accelerations and 
incentives. Gardening must be encouraged. 
It is a prime blunder in gardening to think 
the business of gardening and the gardener is 
to raise vegetables. What a dull utilitarian a 
gardener would be who would so diagnose the 
gardener’s task. Nay, verily. The main business 
to be accomplished in gardening is to make the 
effort. It is not a gardener’s business to produce 
vegetables. It is his business to go through 
those motions which wisely directed do some- 
times ultimate in vegetables. That places gar- 
dening among the fine arts as also in the heroic 
occupations, such as discovery and hunting lions. 
There is the uncertainty in lion hunting as to 
whether you will consume the lion or the lion 
will consume you. This adds to the interest 
both of the lion and the man. Nothing is settled 
in this world prior to the event. There is a 
dash of wild courage, therefore, a rush of per- 
turbations, a swing of wild enthusiasm when a 
man strikes hoe into the ground for the making 
