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Old Time Gardens 
Such folk could scarce find content in an Ameri- 
can garden ; for our American gardeners must con- 
fess, with Shakespeare’s clown : “ I am no great 
Nebuchadnezzar, sir, I have not much skill in grass.” 
Our lawns are not old enough. 
A charming greenery of old English gardens was 
the bowling-green. We once had them in- our colo- 
nies, as the name of a street in our greatest city now 
proves ; and I deem them a garden fashion well-to- 
be-revived. 
The laws of color preference differ with the size 
of expanses. Our broad fields often have pleasing 
expanses of leafage other than green, and flowers 
that are as all-pervading as foliage. Many flowers 
of the field have their day, when each seems to be 
queen, a short day, but its rights none dispute. 
Snow of Daisies, yellow of Dandelions, gold of But- 
tercups, purple pinkness of Clover, Innocence, Blue- 
eyed Grass, Milkweed, none reign more absolutely 
in every inch of the fields than that poverty stricken 
creature, the Sorrel. William Morris warns us that 
“ flowers in masses are mighty strong color,” and must 
be used with much caution in a garden. But there 
need be no fear of massed color in a field, as being 
ever gaudy or cloying. An approach to the beauty 
and satisfaction of nature’s plentiful field may be 
artificially obtained as an adjunct to the garden in a 
flower-close sown or set with a solid expanse of 
bloom of some native or widely adopted plant. I 
have seen a flower-close of Daisies, another of But- 
tercups, one of Larkspur, one of Coreopsis. A 
new field tint, and a splendid one, has been given to 
