GARDENS AND GARDENING. 
7 
ings. We used to see these in the little country gardens, 
with paths of crude earth or gravel. Nowadays, it has 
been discovered that box harbors slugs, and we are begin¬ 
ning to have beds with tiled borders, while the walks are 
made of asphalt! For a pleasure-ground in Dante’s ‘ In¬ 
ferno,’ such materials might be suitable.” But it has also 
been discovered, among other evidences of progress in gar¬ 
dening, that a small plot of ground cut up into a labyrinth 
of narrow walks, edged with dwarf-box, is a piece of un¬ 
sightly patchwork—displeasing to the eye, and undesir¬ 
able in every way, the later fashion of a smooth lawn, 
with flower-beds effectively disposed here and there, being 
much more natural-looking and agreeable. For flowers are 
like diamonds—their setting should be of the most incon¬ 
spicuous nature, and never the more prominent feature of 
the two. 
In spite of their faults though, the old gardens, as some 
one says, stir within us a feeling which the modern ones, 
with their stiff massing and “ blaze of color,” fail to excite. 
Loving memories linger about the little cottage plot— 
u Where the marjoram once, and sage, and rue, 
And balm, and mint, with curled-leaf parsley grew, 
And double marigolds and silver thyme, 
And pumpkins ’neath the window used to climb; 
And where I often, when a child, for hours 
Tried through the pales to get the tempting flowers, 
As lady’s laces, everlasting peas, 
True-love-lies-bleeding, with the hearts-at ease 
And golden-rods and tansy running high, 
That o’er the pale-top smiled on passers-by; 
Flowers in my time which every one would praise, 
Though thrown like weeds from gardens nowadays.” 
One particular feature of the old-fashioned garden 
which rendered it so attractive was the intermixture 
of fruit-trees, vegetables, and flowers—an arrangement 
