February, 1910 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



11 



tree lives, and it grows more glorious year by 

 year, and then, in three hundred years — 

 wonderful — you come to earth again, per- 

 chance, and you go to see your tree, no 

 longer a tree — it is the tree — it has become 

 an individual, a landmark — it has entwined 

 its mighty roots into the great constructive 

 plan of Creation. And that which was you 

 has worked the great miracle. 



Is it possible that we, of this age, should fall 

 so far short of the ideals of our progenitors, 

 that we continue on and on in our childish 

 craving for quick effects? Is it possible 

 that when we leave this garden of life, we are 

 to leave it bare and empty, strewn with the 

 rubbish of short-lived, faint-hearted things? 



Quick effects are not to be despised nor 

 discouraged, for they do fill a need in sup- 

 plying the garden lover an immediate grati- 

 fication of his aesthetic taste — but, with the 

 ephemeral planting for the joy of this year, 

 can we not at the same time carry on that 

 larger work for the growth of beauty upon 

 this earth in after years? 



Come into our garden next May day. 

 Walk down the long path. You come to 

 the cypress. There you stop and turn, and 

 your whole soul is filled with an ecstasy of 

 wonder as your eyes catch the uptowering 

 violet plumes of the paulownia, waving its 

 luminous branches in clouds of azure to the 

 morning. But this is not all, oh, no, there 



is more — for there was once a man who 

 dreamed. You turn down to the ancient yew 

 and touch its silken tassels, and then step 

 out from beneath the deep and solemn 

 shade, to stand, transfixed, for before you, 

 God's earth has reached up to the sky 

 in flowering arms, in the embrace of a 

 giant tree, quivering from earth to heaven 

 with thousands of yellow tulips, of a fra- 

 grance at once so subtle and withal so 

 far-reaching as to lead you to feel it must 

 have scattered over the whole earth, leav- 

 ing in the May morning's breath just 

 enough for your delight. 



Is it nothing that there was once a man 

 who dreamed? 



"You plant an oak. You die. "What of that? The tree lives and 



in three hundred years 



it has become an individual, a landmark ' 



