POSSIBILITIES OF THE FUTURE 
setting, will induce. The best places acknowledge the 
fatherhood of the country about them, adapting the 
natural aspect to their own uses, but neither ignoring 
nor violating it. 
It is only when the people at large take to doing 
anything that an actual vitality ensues, and, therefore, 
the most encouraging symptom of a new garden era 
lies in the general interest perceptible in many direc¬ 
tions. There are the numerous and successful books 
and magazines of a technical sort, for instance, ad¬ 
dressed to persons whose chief asset is a personal 
enthusiasm for improving whatever lies at hand and a 
readiness to undertake the labor of laying out and culti¬ 
vating a small place with their own hands. The gar¬ 
den triumphant! Delightful thought. It is this same 
general desire that has long existed in England, and 
that has put her so far ahead of us in the matter of 
gardens. Even in the use of window boxes, the Eng¬ 
lish towns exceed anything done here. London, dur¬ 
ing the season, looks like a flower garden stood on 
end, so ubiquitous are these tiny flower beds. The 
English man or woman must have flowers, cannot get 
along without them where there is the least chance to 
make them grow. And precisely at the moment when 
an Englishman becomes possessed of a bit of ground, 
a garden begins to evolve. 
The American tendency for doing everything in a 
hurry, and without a feeling for the permanence of 
253 
