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time occupied in a sedentary position—gardening brings us into the 
open air, gives healthful exercise to the muscles, and tends to the 
invigorating of the whole frame. When I see a man who is perhaps to 
be behind a counter, or sitting at a desk all day, digging in his garden 
before breakfast, or running out after his shop or his office is closed in 
the evening, I am quite sure he is taking one of the best means to 
counteract the evil effects of his ordinary pursuits. For though I cannot, 
ex cathedra , give my opinion as a medical authority, yet I believe there 
are two things of which people are generally very much afraid, which 
are most conducive to health—air and cold water. Let a man’s plot be 
ever so small, he will find enough to occupy him in it continually. 
During those months when exposure to the air might possibly be 
hurtful he has little to do in his garden, while during the time that it 
would be beneficial he may and does find constant employment. 
Believing then as I do that health, being one of God’s gifts, ought to be 
carefully preserved, I would recommend to all who are suffering from 
dyspepsia, or whatever ills we too often occasion ourselves by our neglect 
or ill treatment of that much abused but most patient organ, the 
stomach, the obtaining of a small piece of ground, and their careful 
attention to it themselves—many fancied ills will vanish, and many 
real ones be mitigated. 
Then it is a great encourager of good habits. Thus there is early 
rising ; how much people miss by their wretched practice of lying in 
bed till the sun is high up in the heavens. The glorious sunrise, the 
sweet freshness of early morn ; the joyful carol of the lark, and all that 
indescribable charm that mornincr has for those who love it. Now the 
O 
man who is fond of a garden must be an early riser. It is an old 
saying—“ The early bird gets the first wormbut with him, the 
worm will get him if he is not sharp about it. He lays in bed for a 
morning, does not look over his Rose trees, and lo! the next morning a 
nasty maggot is found to have eaten out his expected bud. He must 
be up betimes, for his business must be attended to, and it is only by 
snatching a few hours from the night—not in the way the song 
prescribes—that he can gratify his desire at all. Then, again, there is 
the love of order which it encourages. An untidy garden no one cares 
much to look at, weeds are an eyesore ; and although at one time it 
was considered the acme of good gardening to conceal art, and make a 
garden look as natural as possible, that is now exploded, and we at 
once recognise the well-kept flower-garden as more pleasing to the eye 
than the tangled wildness of shrubs and flowers, which, after all, is a 
clumsy attempt to imitate nature, and keeping clear of the excessive 
formality of the Dutch gardens, we can yet see the beauty of regularity 
and neatness. And this applies equally to the vegetable garden as 
to the flower; for one where everything is at sixes and sevens, tall and 
short growing kinds all mixed together, affords no pleasure, while even 
and regular rows of the various sorts, carefully arranged, will be pleasing 
even in their growth, for who does not admire the beautiful regularity 
of a Wheat field which has been drilled in, and prefer it to the one 
where it is sown broadcast. And let me add to these that it keeps a 
man at home; his garden is generally close at hand, and he cannot 
