THINGS WORTH DOING 275 



alone are spoiled by doing away with some simple 

 natural feature in order to put in its place some 

 liackneyed form of gardening. Such places should be 

 treated with the most deliberate and careful considera- 

 tion. Hardly a year passes that I do not see in my 

 own neighbourhood examples of this kind that seem to 

 me extremely ill-judged. Houses great and small are 

 being built on tracts of natural heath-land. A perfect 

 undergrowth of wild Heaths is there already. If it is 

 old and overgrown, it can be easily renewed by clearing 

 it off and lightly digging the ground over, when the 

 Heaths will quickly spring up again. Often there are 

 already thriving young Scotch Firs and Bii'ches. 



Where such conditions exist, a beautiful garden 

 can be easily made at the least possible cost, jealously 

 saving all that there is already, and then using in 

 some simple way such plants as I have recommended 

 in the chapter on Plants for Poor Soils. The presence 

 of the Scotch Fir points to that being the best tree to 

 plant in quantity ; and the few other trees that will do 

 admirably in dry light soils, Birch, Spanish Chestnut, 

 Holly, and Juniper, will give as much variety as can 

 be wanted by a sober mind that understands the value 

 of temperance in planting. 



There are many people who almost unthinkingly 

 will say, " But I like a variety." Do they really think 

 and feel that variety is actually desirable as an end in 

 itself, and is of more value than a series of thought- 

 fully composed garden pictures ? There are no doubt 



