Qardenlng at JYa l£69 



PART I. 



JSeingtfie Veracious Jlccount of a Juccessful MattCs 6etureen 

 the Owner and a J^ecaCcitrant Back, ^ccrd, by 



T IS my private opinion 



that any one can have a 



garden anywhere if he 



wants one badly enough 



to make the attempt and to 



persist in spite of obstacles. 



I speak feelingly after my experience at 

 No. 1869, which, as you may have guessed, 

 is the number of the house attached to our 

 Cleveland backyard. 



And such a backyard! The minute I 

 looked at it, my heart sank. I had a pro- 

 phetic glimpse of what was in store for me if 

 I tried to grow flowers in that abomination 

 of desolation. But as I cannot be happy 

 without blossoms of some sort, there was 

 nothing to do but to make a test. 



Why we came here and why we have 

 stayed so long is another story. 



But before I begin, I beg to state that, 

 though I may appear to present an improb- 

 able picture of the fancy, this is the plain 

 unvarnished tale of our difficulties. Women 

 have been known to stretch things a little 

 sometimes, I admit; but this is not an 

 example of feminine exaggeration. Fur- 

 thermore, if my narrative bristles with I's, it 

 is, I trust, not due to abnormal egotism 

 but because this account is so purely per- 

 sonal. 



We rented the house late in the winter. 

 My strongest impression of the yard came 

 to me through my nostrils early in the fol- 

 lowing spring. When one stepped into this 

 enclosure, it was as if one had descended 

 into a damp, evil-smelling cellar into which 

 light and air seldom if ever penetrate. 

 That peculiar musty smell seemed incredi- 

 ble in a portion of the out-of-doors, but that 

 it was no chimera of the imagination was 

 proved by its continuous presence, made 

 more noticeable by a rainfall. 



Later, we learned that this was filled-in 

 soil. What the filling was, I can't say. 

 Judging by after acquaintance, I should 

 think it may have been cement that had 

 seen its best days in some basement, broken 

 brick, or some material equally plastic. 

 We were also informed that our garden spot 

 had been originally a part of a swale, and 

 there was a well authenticated story of a 

 brook that used to meander across the 

 premises in the rear. 



The top soil was so hard that it seemed 

 nearly impervious to rain. The first year's 

 digging produced little effect. The water 

 would run off the beds almost like quick- 

 silver. After a shower, it stood in pools 

 everywhere, later followed by a crop of 

 mosquitoes and moss. In the yard which 

 we had had before coming here, the flowers 

 after a rain seemed to grow by jumps and 

 bounds; in this place, to our surprise, they 

 stood looking dazed, as if they didn't know 

 what had struck them. 



The present subsoil is a coarse yellow 



JY2naJ{. JltCen 



sand, harmless enough in appearance, and 

 yet, somewhere below, the organisms that 

 make a swamp dangerous are still carrying 

 on their unholy work. Fever lurks in the 

 depths, with aching bones and a dragging 

 step for the daring gardener who would 

 snatch a few flowers from this plague spot 

 of malaria in the centre of a big city. 



TREE TROUBLES 



In addition to the lowness of the ground, 

 a reason for the dampness of this site was 

 found in the presence of too many trees. 

 The yard back of the house is only about 

 seventy-five feet deep and forty wide, and 

 yet in this restricted space, there were five 

 trees: a moribund plum tree; a "tree of 

 heaven," or some other place — I have 

 doubts as to the locality — the self-sown 

 offspring of a well meaning but too prolific 

 ailanthus that has peppered the neighbor- 

 hood with its progeny; an immense apple 

 tree of beautiful form and densest foliage, 

 never producing a blossom, but a mass of 

 leaves infested with the tiny green insects 

 politely called aphides; and two large 

 horse chestnuts close to the house, effec- 

 tively sifting the little light that might have 

 straggled into the gloomy kitchen. 



It was here that I learned the true mean- 

 ing of Virgil's expression, "the horrid 

 shade," which had puzzled me during my 

 school days. 



A tree is undoubtedly one of the most 

 beautiful things in all nature. Few objects 

 give the observer so great a sense of rest 

 and pleasure as a fine tree, both for its soft- 

 ness of color and its beauty of shape. And 

 he who wantonly injures or destroys one is 

 a barbarian. He is in the same class with 

 the person who mistreats a dog. 



But personally, though I am fond of 

 trees, I prefer no large ones in a back yard 

 of ordinary size. I like them at a distance, 

 in some one else's yard, for instance, and 

 then not too near my fences. They drain 

 the soil of its natural nourishment, leaving 

 nothing for the garden, and they greedily 

 seize the delicacies one has provided for the 

 flowers; they kill the grass; they cut off the 

 sunshine so necessary to almost all annuals 

 and to many lovely perennials ; they darken 

 the house, perhaps like ours already dismal 

 because the foolish woman who planned it 

 has put in many of its windows on the bias, 

 as it were, making it damp and unsanitary. 



The truth is that when trees are planted 

 by the average householder they are too 

 often stuck in without rhyme nor reason. 

 They are set out simply because it is sup- 

 posed to be the right thing to do, and they 

 are effective only as a menace to health. 



This was especially true of our horse 



291 



chestnuts. They had not even 

 the compensating merit of 

 continuous beauty. Early in 

 the season, they were in- 

 teresting, as their big leaf 

 buds unfolded and their odd 

 blossoms appeared, and for a while, their 

 foliage was not unpleasing. A little later, 

 especially during a hot, dry summer, the 

 leaves took on a scorched appearance as 

 if a torch had been passed over them. "The 

 Home of the Tussock Moth," it sounds like 

 a piano advertisement — but this was what 

 we came to call the horse chestnuts, and 

 with good reason; for we seldom went into 

 the yard but that one or more of the delight- 

 ful little caterpillars that look so much like 

 small scrubbing brushes came down from 

 the branches to wander across our necks, 

 leaving a blister as a souvenir of the visit. 



The horse chestnuts were otherwise 

 grievously afflicted. Besides being addic- 

 ted to caterpillars, they had San Jose scale. 

 The City Forester pronounced it a bad 

 case, and did not regard the trees as worth 

 removing, even as a gift. We finally per- 

 suaded the landlord that the only cure for 

 San Jose scale, when severe, is an operation, 

 and that it must be as radical as guillotin- 

 ing. And it was successful, like some other 

 operations about which we have heard. 



If you think that I did not deplore the 

 passing of these trees, you are mistaken. 

 I seemed to feel in my own frame the first 

 blow that gashed their trunks; but I did 

 not weaken outwardly; and I have never 

 regretted my firmness. The removal of 

 the superfluous trees with the consequent 

 admission of sunshine, aided by the culti- 

 vation of the soil, has done much for the 

 yard, although it never will be a healthful 

 place, I fear, unless underdrained by tiles, 

 with the adjoining lots similarly treated. 



As for the other trees, the nearly dead 

 plum tree was urged to "get on with the 

 deeing," like the Scotchman in the story; 

 the old apple tree was thinned out, and 

 after one half of the remainder had been 

 blown down in a severe wind storm, it 

 actually said "Thank you," with fair apples 

 for a pie, a pudding, and some sauce; the 

 young tree of heaven stood in one of the 

 few available spots for flowers. 



We were told by a florist that these trees 

 poison the soil, and I am inclined to think 

 that he is right, having observed repeated 

 failure in a garden where they have been 

 allowed to remain. But whether his belief 

 is well founded or not, they certainly rob 

 the soil with their far-reaching roots. Be- 

 sides this, here the ailanthus also cut off 

 the sunshine from borders that would 

 otherwise have had a sufficient supply. 

 It was therefore condemned to join the 

 horse chestnuts, and the root, which lives 

 for a long while after the trunk has been 



