SOME GARDEN VICES 
entire row of my finest delphiniums with one stamp of 
his foot—gad, what a foot! ” 
There is another garden criminal whose special prey 
is his own kind. This is the habitual borrower, the 
man who is forever coming to get something that he 
has either lost, neglected to buy, or broken. Persons 
with this vice have been known actually to snatch the 
lawn-mower, the spade, or the hose from your very 
grasp, carting them over to their own place with a 
mumbled ejaculation that they will return it in “ no 
time.” Evidently this division of time never arrives; 
at least, if you want your tool, you must go for it—to 
find it lying out in the sun and rain, rusty, forgotten. 
This sort of man will sit on your back porch and study 
your catalogues, and growl because you don’t subscribe 
to more. He will ask for slips and plants, hint that 
his pinks and snapdragons have disappointed him, and 
demand a bunch of yours—“ you always have such 
luck.” Neither walls nor hedges will keep this pest 
out, nor any amount of denial discourage him. Early 
and late you may hear his “ I wonder if you could let 
me have —,” resounding through the violated peace 
of a garden you can no longer call your own. 
The selfish gardener, he or she who will not pick 
any of the lovely inhabitants of their beds, is rarer, is 
few and far between, but does exist. These go along 
their paths with snub-nosed scissors that clip the dead 
blossoms but never the living ones. They gloat over 
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