The American Garden. 



Vol. XI. 



NOVEMBER, 1890. 



No. II. 



acKwood GapdGr\6 



PRIMITIVE TANGLES UNDER THE SHADOWS OF GREAT CITIES GARDENING OF LOVE. 



N AN eastern state, not twenty-five miles from one of the largest cities in the Union, 

 I have come across sections as remote in reality from the centers of thought and 

 the business world as though they were in the heart of a Montana forest. Usually 

 in tracts of land cut off from railroads, the farms, mostly small ones, nestle cosily 

 among the woods and hills very much as they must have done two hundred years 

 ago, for the land here was among the very first in the country to be agriculturally 

 claimed and used. The citizens, in times far back, were politicians and men of 

 affairs, and indulged themselves in debating societies, clubs, secret lodges and so 

 on, aiming to be liberal minded ; but the onward march of the world outside has 

 had an opposite effect on them, and their ambitions intellectually have withered 

 away, with a few isolated exceptions. Even the Saturday night lounge at the corner-store for the 

 exchange of ideas is left to the boys. The men seem to be as distinct and different a type from the 

 western backwoodsman as can be imagined. Thoroughly discouraged and narrow-lived, they have the 

 air of being behind in the race, and instead of striving for the betterment of things, take a delight in 

 making existence as hard as possible for themselves. Early to work, and with the day's works's end to 

 bed, is very often the day's sole program ; no magazines, no time for flowers, no anything, I regret to 

 say, that would tend to brighten the home life. 



And as for the boys — a small percentage of whom will presumably step into their father's shoes — 

 they will be their fathers over again. I have not found one this summer who would own to a liking for 

 flowers, for instance. Perhaps boys, in this, are alike the world over, but yet it strikes one as strange 

 that those born and living with such a beautiful country surrounding them, woods and flowers nowhere in 

 the country excelled, should have every thought centered in things the very opposite. They live with 



COPYRIGHT, 1890. 



