234 OLD-FASHIONED GARDENING 
What prompted the old gardeners to do this, or to 
choose that, or to reject the other*? 
Of course we may say that they chose what they 
liked, and did what they believed in, and rejected 
what they did not admire; but behind their admira¬ 
tion and their belief and their dislike, what*? Why 
was “this” pleasing, “that” expedient, and “the 
other” disapproved 1 ? With two hundred years wiped 
out, in other words, and ourselves back at the begin¬ 
ning of the eighteenth century, what is this complexity 
which we call life, like? And how does it react on 
us and our garden making, among other things? 
First and foremost and most striking, I think, of 
all the changes which mark the regression, is the change 
in the resources of the home itself. There is an utter 
lack of resource to be found outside the home; each 
family establishment is a unit, and a complete one in 
and by itself. There is almost no urban group of 
such establishments, with their interdependence and ex¬ 
change of commodities and service; but instead each 
household relies upon itself and its own resources for 
practically everything except defense in time of danger 
—and even for this too, many times. 
It is difficult to see ourselves under such conditions 
—we, whose boasted independence does not now, as a 
matter of fact, extend even to the limits of our own 
dooryards. Back there in 1700 there are no grocers 
