THE OLD-FASHIONED GARDEN 161 
of praise or interest, or even a second thought. Ob¬ 
viously, therefore, it is not with anything as simple 
as the actual meaning of the words that we have to 
deal. It is their associated meaning that is in need 
of analysis. 
The limitation of time—or perhaps more accurately, 
the time limit—is the first and most important thing 
to establish, with regard to the compound. When is a 
thing old-fashioned 1 ? That all depends; the words 
themselves, being altogether relative, require that a 
limit be fixed, arbitrarily, in order that this question 
may be answered. Some period must be defined be¬ 
yond which they shall not reach, and before which 
they shall not advance. Yesterday’s fashion in a 
frock or a frill, is old to-day; last year’s fashion in a 
romance, the fashion of a decade since in sports, or 
of fifty years ago in dwellings—all these are old 
fashions, now. Yet how instantly does the magic of 
the term cleave from it when it is applied to any of 
these tame and tiresome back-numbers. Assuredly it 
is none of these degrees of old fashion which appeal. 
Its application to the art of gardening is of course 
the use which I am seeking to ground upon a clearer 
purpose. Its limitations in this instance, therefore, 
must be set according to the periods of this art—and 
these have varied in different parts of the world, even 
as we have found that they varied here within our 
