9 6 
Old Time Gardens 
We are told that it is not well to plant Box edg- 
ings in our gardens, because Box is so frail, is so 
easily winter-killed, that it dies down in ugly fashion. 
Yet see what great trees it forms, even when un- 
trimmed, as in the Prince Garden (page 31). It 
is true that Box does not always flourish in the 
precise shape you wish, but it has nevertheless a 
wonderfully tenacious hold on life. I know nothing 
more suggestive of persistence and of sad sentiment 
than the view often seen in forlorn city enclosures, 
as you drive past, or rush by in an electric car, of 
an aged bush of Box, or a few feet of old Box hedge 
growing in the beaten earth of a squalid back yard, 
surrounded by dirty tenement houses. Once a fair 
garden there grew ; the turf and flowers and trees 
are vanished ; but spared through accident, or be- 
cause deemed so valueless, the Box still lives. Even 
in Washington and other Southern cities, where the 
negro population eagerly gather Box at Christmas- 
tide, you will see these forlorn relics of the garden 
still growing, and their bitter fragrance rises above 
the vile odors of the crowded slums. 
Box formed an important feature of the garden of 
Pliny’s favorite villa in Tuscany, which he described 
in his letter to Apollinaris. How I should have 
loved its formal beauty ! On the southern front a 
terrace was bordered with a Box hedge and “ embel- 
lished with various figures in Box, the representa- 
tion of divers animals.” Beyond was a circus 
formed around by ranges of Box rising in walls 
of varied heights. The middle of this circus was 
ornamented with figures of Box. On one side was a 
