THE JOY OE A GARDEN. 83 
should be understood to include the pleasure attendant 
on the exercise of skill and industry, and the source 
of health that a garden always proves to a man who 
loves it. And this is equally true, whether a man be 
called to the hurry of commercial life in town, or be 
blest with country air and singing birds in the midst of 
farms and gardens. The subject invites one's heart as 
much as one's head, and the world is never more ready 
to pardon enthusiasm than when it is the sign and token 
of a love of out-of-door pleasures, and has for its end 
and aim the improvement of the social ties that bind the 
human family together. 
To enjoy a garden, a man must be a student of Nature, 
a good weather prophet, something of a botanist, very 
quick-sighted in matters of vegetable physiology, accus¬ 
tomed to observation, and that “forecasting of the 
whole/' which Cowper notes as so essential to success. 
Those who dabble with little town plots, and never soar 
beyond paternal laurels and sweet-williams, have an idea 
that the gardener's season begins in May and ends in 
September; but your genuine gardener finds as much to 
do, and as many pleasures in his work in the depth of 
winter as in the height of summer. I do not know but 
what the winter pleasures are the best, as they certainly 
are the most intellectual. Philosophers say that “ anti¬ 
cipating" is a greater joy than “realizing;" and when a 
man sits down to sketch out his scheme of culture for the 
next season, to plan his beds and arrange his planting, 
he has to exercise some very high faculties of mind. 
Perhaps he has done verbenas and geraniums, and 
lobelias, till he is sick of the repetitions, and now he 
