The naked earth is warm with Spring, 
And with green grass and bursting trees 
Leans to the sun's gaze glorying, 
And quivers in the sunny breeze; 
And life is Colour and Warmth and Light, 
And a striving evermore for these; 
And he is dead who will not fight, 
And who dies fighting has increase. 
— From ''Into Battle^' by Captain the Hon. Julian H. F. Grenfell,. 
D. S. O., who died of his wounds in May, 191 5. 
These are trying days for amateur gardeners. In their hearts 
they long to plant the alluring "novelties" pictured and sung in the 
spring catalogues, but, alas, where are the gardeners to tend them, 
where find the time to enjoy them, is there enough energy, after all 
the war work is done, to give them their due measure of attention 
and care and notice? In our gardens are many costly plants that 
need care, many gay ones that grow of themselves. Perhaps we ought 
this year to give our time to the first and depend on the second for 
color and bloom. It is no more fair to let them die than to leave 
neglected newly planted things. We take it that that overworked 
and misunderstood word, conservation, means preservation of existing 
things rather more than creation of new, so while we are creating new 
vegetable gardens let us preserve old flower gardens. And if, perhaps, 
we have no moments even for dear and faithful perennials let us keep 
somewhere in the back of our minds a memory and a desire for the 
fair, frail things of other peaceful summers. If we must pass through 
ugly years may beauty be but a thing, deferred, a comfort sacrificed 
because our hope is victory and our end a glorious peace. 
Council of Presidents 
The Spring Meeting of the Executive Committee and Council of 
Presidents will be held at the residence of Mrs. H. D. Auchincloss, 
at 33 E. 67th Street, New York, on March 25. 
The following notes from the Arnold Arboretum have been 
especially prepared for The Bulletin by Professor Sargent. They 
are the beginning of a series which will appear during the coming year. 
