There Was Once a Man Who Dreamed, 1- By Ida M. H. Starr, est 



OVER there, on a corner shelf, if you are 

 disposed to investigate, you will find 

 our collection of garden books. Dear books, 

 some new, some old, on all sorts of subjects, 

 from the growing of vegetables to the laying 

 out of a "Parterre de Broderie." 



It is a joy to-day to sink into the wings of 

 a Martha Washington chair in front of the 

 crackling fire, reach for a garden book, and 

 read and dream. 



So this splendid blustering day, I have been 

 browsing among books as fancy chose. Much 

 as I am disposed to enjoy the winter leisure, 

 I am yet constrained by habit to run through 

 the garden almanac that there may be no 

 possibility of my having forgotten any of its 

 arbitrary admonitions. 



It reads as follows: "Resolve to have a 

 better garden next year." 



I did resolve that long ago when the fox- 

 glove had finished blooming, and there was 

 nothing left to take its place; when the pop- 

 pies sent regrets and the mignonette was 

 otherwise engaged; when the Canterbury 

 bells would not ring and the Japanese lilies 

 complained of the heat. The almanac maker 

 was truly no psychologist. Had he been as 

 skilful in reading the Past as he was in fore- 

 casting the Future, he would have omitted 

 that first suggestion. Is a garden lover ever 

 quite satisfied ? 



It is novel to find that instead of regret- 

 ting an undue amount of work, I am dis- 

 posed to be at odds with the almanac and 

 our garden books, for having omitted one 

 duty which seems more important than all 

 the others combined. 



Where in all our rich collection is the gar- 

 den lover told to sit by the fire, when the 

 north wind blows, to toast his toes and dream 

 his dreams ? 



So I sit here and read that this be done, 

 and that be done. How would anything ever 

 be done in this great wonderful world, if 

 there were not here, there and over yonder, 

 dreamers by the fire, their open books lying 

 half read before them. To dream, one 

 should be comfortable — quite comfortable. 

 People do not dream if they are cold and 

 hungry. A man does not dream before break- 

 fast, or when he is wet and shivering. But 

 he does dream, and he always has dreamed, 

 and always will dream after dinner, as he 

 absorbs the gentle warmth of a crackling fire, 

 when the January blast drives him indoors, 

 and he thinks there is nothing finer on earth 

 than his own hearth. Then the future steals 

 winsomely into the chair beside him. 



In our mild climate, December and early 

 January are still tree months. Then the 

 Master of the House takes his crew down 

 into the woods, picks out specimen trees, 

 and brings them on low-wheeled trucks to 

 their new homes. 



Day after day in different months of the 

 year, as the hour seemed propitious, we 

 have been planting trees until their number 

 has reached into the thousands and their 

 species over a hundred. 



So, on the days when we were ready, we 

 have planted windbreaks, orchards, outlined 

 lanes, and dotted the shore with a view to 

 landscape effects with sapling trees. There 

 is an avenue from the house to the woodland 

 creek a quarter of a mile long, planted with 

 alternate red and white oaks, flanked on the 

 outside by more thickly set rows of alternate 

 junipers and hemlocks. These oaks were 

 the especial winter task three years ago. 



In twenty-five years the shadows will be 

 long and cool, up and down that avenue. In 

 fifty years, the trees will meet. In one hun- 

 dred years a cathedral aisle, all green and 

 lofty, will lead men's hearts to ways of peace. 

 In two hundred years, oh! how glorious it 

 will be in two hundred years ! 



I can see you smile, Mr. World Man. 

 What did you say? "I may not be here in 

 fifty years ? You will not be here ? " What 

 of that? Some one else will be here; maybe 

 my children, maybe yours, maybe not. Some- 

 one's children will surely be here in fifty, one 

 hundred, two hundred years. Is it not 

 enough that when they come they will find 

 the shade, the beauty and the green aisle ? 



Our giant and ancient trees are the Euro- 

 pean beech, English linden, English walnut, 

 English yew, paulownia, tulip poplar, syca- 

 more, catalpa, ailanthus, elm, holly, locust, 

 weeping willow, juniper, sweet gum, ash, 

 and pear ; these are the chief trees about the 

 old house. I include pear advisedly, some of 

 our pear trees being nearly three feet through, 

 for here the pear is a vigorous plant and 

 attains great age. 



Now there is nothing particularly inter- 

 esting in a list of trees, but there is something 

 vitally interesting in the fact that once upon 

 a time, one hundred, two hundred years ago, 

 there was a man who toasted his toes by a 

 crackling fire, perhaps burning in this very 

 same fireplace, dreamed dreams of old world 

 gardens, and then went forth to plant trees. 



What is it we hear on all sides of us as you, 

 Mr. World Man, and your friends, come 

 down to us seeking homes in old Virginia 

 or perhaps on the legendary "Eastern Shore" 

 of Maryland? It is nothing but trees, the 

 grove of grand old trees about the mansion 

 for which you cry, for which you pay out 

 that precious gold you have been picking up 

 as you went along. That is all, just trees; 

 and you feel, and every one about you feels, 

 that if you own a bit of God's earth that has 

 upon it some glorious trees and a view, you 

 are then truly rich — no matter what the 

 dwelling may be; and you are not truly rich 

 until you do own some glorious trees framing 

 a vista you love. 



To be sure, all of this country has its wood- 

 land which is a part of every plantation — 

 sometimes containing magnificent specimens 

 of the native trees, but what satisfaction can 

 they give the householder, when they are 

 a half-mile from where he lives? 



The woodland has its great value of course, 

 in furnishing firewood, fencing material, and 

 odd sticks of timber for use about the farm — 

 10 



and it also has an aesthetic value since most 

 of the woodlands have been kept for gener- 

 ations along the highways, so that our country 

 roads are sweetly sheltered, the mansions 

 having been placed by the early settlers in 

 sightly locations far from the main highway, 

 and usually near some beautiful stretch of 

 water. 



But what is the home without its guardian 

 trees ? 



What are these Colonial mansions down in 

 Maryland and Virginia? What are they 

 before you make them comfortable by repairs 

 and readaptation to modern ideals of con- 

 venience ? 



With all veneration I say it, for the true 

 Colonial mansion is a fetish with us, these 

 old houses are nothing as compared with the 

 legacy of trees bequeathed to this country by 

 nature and by those first builders of homes 

 and framers of liberty. 



We have an ancient yew, which, though 

 estimated to be more than two hundred 

 years old, is now only in its youth. To-day 

 it is to us priceless. So with all our other 

 great trees, aside from the pleasure their 

 beauty gives us, they are all a part of an 

 actual increasing value of the close about our 

 home. 



Now, these trees did not happen here. 

 Trees do, fortunately for the human race, 

 happen to grow in many fitting places because 

 they must. But they do not happen in 

 stately avenues — nor symmetrical circles. 

 Avenues and circles of giant trees indicate 

 that they were planted there by some man 

 who dreamed, not for himself, but for the 

 lovers of gardens, who should walk upon 

 the earth long after. 



He was not the man who strived for quick 

 effects, who planted for this year or for the 

 next, who planted only that he alone might 

 live to see the joy of his labor. His plant- 

 ing was of those shrubs and trees which grew 

 the slowest and the surest, whose climax of 

 glory he would never witness, under whose 

 shade he would never rest. He might not 

 live to see his box in great billowy waves 

 shutting in a dear garden from the world, 

 but he planted his box hedges just the same. 

 He brought his tiny yew tree from England 

 in a pot, and he cared for it through months, 

 when his soul was faint with forebodings on 

 the great sea, and he knew he could not live to 

 see his treasure reach an age of dignity; but 

 he planted the yew tree in good faith, and 

 its sombre plumes drooped over his grave. 



And so with all of his great slow-growing 

 trees — he planted them all ; for he dreamed 

 dreams, splendid dreams, whose end he 

 could not see, dreams whose influence 

 made him the truly great individuality that 

 he was. 



A beech! An oak! A tulip tree! Does 

 that sound small — not worth while to be 

 the guardian of your future, your immor- 

 tality? Three small trees which you have 

 planted. Let us say one tree, one oak. You 

 plant the oak. You die. What of that ? The 



