The Amateurs' Garden Plotting— and Realization 
By Robert Welles Ritchie, New Jersey. 
IT was the night of the blizzard that Genevieve gave 
first evidences of a strange mental disturbance. 
The blizzard, you remember, was enthusiastically com- 
pared — in New Jersey, at least — with that grandfather 
of all meteorological marathoners, the Blizzard of '88. 
The wind was racing down from Kittypussy Mountain, 
just in front of the house, at an eighty-mile rate, and 
the snow was driving like diamond dust under the front 
door and all the window sashes on the west facade of our 
villa. The drifts on our estate were, I swear it, 10 feet 
on the average ; thermometer stood at 10 above. 
One of the cellar windows blew in just then; but in 
deference to my wife's interest I turned over the big 
volume that lay open under her elbow and read the title : 
"Chateaux Gardens of Provence." 
"I really didn't mean to have you catch me at this until 
I was primed, Cedric," my girl cooed winsomely. "I've 
had all these authorities" — she waved in all the clutter 
of books and magazines — "stowed away in my closet for 
a month and have been reading them when you were at 
the office. But tonight — why, it seemed just the ideal 
time to revel in dreams of what our little place will be, 
so I had to bring my treasures out. I am plotting, Cedric 
— plotting our gardens for the Spring!" 
I did not pass comment on the timeliness of my part- 
ner's enthusiasm, but made a hasty inventory, instead, 
of her stock. There were : "The Gardening Art of Eng- 
land Under the Tudors," "Horticulture in Lombardy," 
"My Lilliputian Japanese Garden" and "Philosophy of 
the Formal Garden." Besides she had a bound volume 
of an English horticultural magazine and scattered num- 
bers of at least four American publications on the gentle 
art of making things bloom. Genevieve's eyes danced as 
she followed my appraisement of her treasures. 
"There's nothing like doing things right when you set 
out to do them," she said with a quiet air of assurance, 
"and I just knew that once you learned how your wife 
was planning to beautify The Crags you'd share her en- 
thusiasm and put your shoulder to the wheel." 
The Crags, I should explain parenthetically, is the 
name Genevieve chose for our villa and half acre out 
here at Kittypussy. Perhaps The Crag would be in more 
conformity with the truth, but Genevieve insisted that in 
naming country places the best people always stuck to 
the plural. I am constrained in the interests of strict 
truth to say that the The Crag even would be in a sense 
metaphorical. We have a rock behind the dining room 
which the Company failed to blast out — a very large 
rock, more spherical than craggy ; but upon this rock 
Genevieve built her fancy and The Crags our place un- 
alterably is. 
But to get back to the storm — no, to Genevieve's gar- 
den culture : 
As I pawed over her authorities she reminded me of 
our experiences in the Brooklyn apartment a year before 
when, fired by a sort of revolt against five-rooms-and- 
bath and all the prison atmosphere that commodity rep- 
resents, we had undertaken an experiment in fire escape 
farming and had produced riotously wheat and citrons 
and early golden pumpkins in our window boxes. That 
had been the beginning of the great struggle for emanci- 
pation from brick and steel of which The Crags (and 
the playful blizzard) represented the triumphal achieve- 
ment. Of course, in a vague way I had anticipated the 
beautifying of our half acre at Kittypussy, had allowed 
my mind to ponder matters of climbing roses and Vic- 
toria Regina lilies ; but during the winter months the 
black rebellion of my boiler and the anaemic tendencies 
of my plumbing had crowded all softer reflections into 
oblivion. Here was Genevieve on the job ! 
"What do you think of my preparation — my authori- 
ties?" she proudly asked when I had conned the titles of 
the last of them. The question was disconcerting. 
"Well, my dear, I — ah — don't you think that Tudor 
English and modern Japanese would clash, you might 
say, on a modest half acre? A peristyle and a pagoga — " 
"Cedric, I'm surprised!" Deep injury was in her tone. 
"Don't you appreciate that we will only take the best 
that each style has to offer? Anyway, how can one set 
about to lay out a country place until one has mastered 
the principles that all the great minds of other ages and 
other lands have formulated? 
"Of course, Cedric dear, it would be too much to ask 
you to go out now and get the exact measurement of that 
line from the corner of the dining room bay window to 
the southeastern boundary stone; but " 
"It would be something to ask," I interposed with just 
a touch of irony. 
"But the very first thing tomorrow you must take the 
tape measure from my sewing basket and get that meas- 
urement for me. I cannot go on with this map until I 
have that line. You understand, the balance between the 
angles of the house and the ensemble of the grounds 
must be nicely adjusted. Now here, where the Crag 
stands " 
"A-hem !" I coughed deferentially and Genevieve 
ceased. "Perhaps, my dear, I can get you that line by 
triangulation over the hills and valleys' of the snow if 
you don't happen to be using the household transit to- 
morrow ; but otherwise " 
"Cedric!" This with severity. "You can be just too 
unreasonable when you want to. After all I have done 
during the past month in preparing myself to express 
the soul of beauty in our little place you — raise — foolish 
objections. It's just too dis — discouraging!" 
Storm signals were set — squally weather with precip- 
itation. I hastened to assure my wife that nothing short 
of one of Pharaoh's plagues would stop the progress of 
her tape measure on the morrow. She smiled through 
her tears, patted my cheek in token of restored confi- 
dence. 
So with undoubted Winter battering our doors, the 
vision of a scientifically burgeoning Spring came to The 
Crags' owners that night. Alone with the furnace at 
two o'clock in the morning, I pondered the revelation 
the hours with my wife's inspired guides had given and 
I was glad. "Put your whole faith in Genevieve," the 
guardian spirit of my destiny murmured. "You may not 
understand it all ; but Genevieve is a superior woman." 
Just a single haunting fear persisted in my heart. 
When I came back to our room from the last trip to the 
furnace I dared to arouse Genevieve so that I might be 
reassured. 
"My dear." I whispered, "is there any place in the 
liet-motif of our garden for a few unobtrusive cabbage 
plants? You know I have set my heart on " 
"Cabbages?" she echoed from the borderland of 
dreams — "Cabbages? Look in the tables under 'Coef- 
ficients of Utility.' " 
I cannot begin to give the sympathetic reader the full 
