V * 
172 
A 5 us tic A darn merits. 
preface to the essays that will follow on certain of its features, which more 
especially come within the scope of this work. We shall be as fragmentary 
and discursive as possible, if only to keep the reader constantly conscious 
that this is not a treatise in any sense of the word. It would not be fair to 
say that a Home of Taste cannot be created except in the vicinity of a garden, 
nevertheless it is certain that a garden is a very essential portion of such a 
home. It has always been so, for at the birthday of the world “ the Lord 
God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there He put the man whom 
He had formed,” “ and the Lord God took the man, and put him into the 
garden of Eden, to dress it and to keep it,” for until this first of men and first 
of gardeners received “ into his nostrils the breath of life,” “ there was not 
a man to till the ground.” So far then from the tilling of the ground being a 
special part of the curse of the fall, it was from the first an occupation 
sanctioned by divine command ; and though man's highest duty was to love 
and worship the Father of all things, he was, nevertheless, made to till the 
ground—created ah initio a gardener. Nor did the Almighty spare His 
mercy, when the fall brought on “the man” a merited punishment. The 
joy of gardening was still vouchsafed to him, and the eternal penance of 
himself and his race was to be tempered by a consideration of the lilies “ how 
they grow”; for when he went “forth from the garden of Eden,” his first 
sweet task was renewed to him, “ to till the ground from whence he was 
taken.” 
Through every succeeding period of human history the culture of plants 
has taken prominence among the sober occupations as well as among the 
amusements of mankind, and this “iron age” finds a strong contrast to its 
harsh commercial tendencies in the increasing love of flowers and the 
expansion of taste in their arrangement and cultivation. Gardening is now 
one of the completest of the arts, for it is an art as well as a pursuit, subject 
to rules as definite as those which control its sister arts of painting, sculpture, 
and poetry; and to which indeed it furnishes innumerable materials, and acts 
at once as nurse, teacher, and standard of comparison. 
It is beyond possibility in one short essay to convey anything like a full 
expression of distinct opinions on the principles of taste in gardening, for the 
subject ranges, wide and far, over a variety of associated topics. But a few 
suggestions may be useful, and as we cannot ignore the subject, it must be 
treated with a view to usefulness. And the first thing that occurs to us is the 
fact, that as very few persons, especially in suburban districts, build their own 
