W ITH March here, comes the first stirring of life outdoors. 
Perhaps it is but a suggestion — a pussywillow struggling 
out of its hard, shiny shell or a weak, timorous bird note 
out of the chill, but nevertheless there is the awakening of antici¬ 
pation in the glory of growing things. In this betweenwhiles, 
while we pause half anxiously scanning the sky, fussing with the 
renovated garden tools or turning fretfully over past garden rec¬ 
ords, let us have just a few moments of reflection. We urge this 
half ashamed of betraying sentiment — for to-day the exhibition of 
feeling is mawkish, effeminate, and reflection is supposed to belong 
to the bookish or the temperamental and not to be a part with de¬ 
cision. Yet we will out with it; we want just a little time for 
consideration and then on with the work. Do you grant it? 
Away with impatience then, we will take up the prospect of our 
garden year from another aspect. 
In the “Garden” there is contained the brief for the sober, re¬ 
strained, rational life. It is full of the inspiration that the coun¬ 
try contains, and even the humblest duties are coupled with some¬ 
thing great and lasting, as he sees it. His book acts as a stimulus, 
especially at this period, for it makes clear that there is a big 
value in living among growing things. If we realize that in the 
making of a home and its attributes there is a permanent satis¬ 
faction, something really worth while, the trowel digs deeper, the 
labor is more earnestly undertaken and the fresh happiness of 
working with hands and heart in unison comes and stays. 
“The tide of life, swift always in its course. 
May run in cities with a brisker force. 
But nowhere with a current so serene. 
Or half so clear as in the rural scene.” 
The Service of 
the Garden 
I 
F one asked a member of the mob 
that attacked the Pallais de Ver¬ 
sailles what his grievance was, he 
would probably have replied “the cost of living" — if you pinned 
him to the fact. It was not that he was jealous of the luxury of 
others, but that he had so little himself. He reasoned that the 
plenty of the wealthy left little for him. 
In those ante-Revolutionary days most of Europe was in the 
mad rush for a new, novelty to kill the deadly boredom that comes 
from the surfeit of pleasures. People craved gilded litters, and 
silks and laces; even the conversation went to excesses and was 
dressed up in affectation and ornateness. So when the latest fad 
of courting Nature came in vogue and gorgeously arrayed shep¬ 
herds and shepherdesses masqueraded in a tricked up country 
side, the jaded amusement seekers wrote of country life in heavy 
Alexandrine metre and thought that they were leading the simple 
life. 
There is something similar in present-day conditions. We are 
not oppressed by tyrants, but we are in need of emancipation from 
the slavery of rush and desire for gain. Every man is prodigal 
of energy, of time and of money. Dress and luxury love induce 
even the poorest to live a butterfly existence with no thought for 
the future, all for the moment of pleasure. The gods of to-day 
are Size and Quantity. Extravagance runs riot in everything. 
The fact is that America is amusement crazy, as was Europe 
before the Revolutionary era. 
We too rail against the cost of living, though a few analytic 
ones claim that to be the effect of a cause, the cost of high living. 
Analyze it as you will, even with the issues of trust and tariff 
ideally arranged, with currency reform or intensive cultivation, 
with all the panaceas for ills of government swallowed and 
digested, the old fever will come on again until the chase after 
pleasure becomes the pursuit of happiness. 
There was a little known poet, Cowper his name, and he 
wrote when England was thinking as we are thinking to-day. 
It was when other writers were addressing Corydon and Thyrsis 
and apostrophizing hillside and stream with Greek proper names. 
Cowper sounded a new note that rang true of the outdoors and 
contained the breath of real fields. He is really our first Nature 
poet. In the “Garden” written shortly before the Erench Revolu¬ 
tion, he leaves much for us to take to heart. And maybe there is 
a pertinent suggestion for our troubles, as he too saw the mis¬ 
take of “The wish to shine, the thirst to be amused.” One would 
hardly expect to find material for poetry in the manure pile, but 
Cowper put it into metre (and incidentally gives as accurate an 
account of the care and making of a hotbed as one would wish). 
A True 
Recreation 
w ITH the same hesitancy that 
we have of showing senti¬ 
ment, many of us would be 
reticent of saying that we had taken up making a garden as an 
avocation. Many men would half expect the retort: “Oh, and 
your indoor sport for winter is crochetting, I suppose.” The man¬ 
liness of gardening needs no defense. Example, arguments and 
authorities are too numerous. We need only mention the bachelor 
who wrote last month of how it beats the club “all hollow.” But 
there’s something to say about gardening as a recreation. 
Your golf is a good thing; so is tennis or riding or any of our 
favorite exercises. They do not preclude everything else, how¬ 
ever, and they have their limitations. One does get exhilaration, 
and exercise, a quicker eye and better muscular control. But how 
long does a particular good remain with us? There is the joy of 
winning, of course, and one recollects with pleasure certain 
matches or tournaments. Eor the most part, aside from physical 
benefit, the experience ends when the game is finished. 
The garden pleasure merely begins with the planting. It is 
one long sequence of delights with no throwing aside of imple¬ 
ments and a “there, that ends it.” The conscious plan goes on 
with room for improvement each year. As skill increases, and 
knowledge grows, there is more specialized work to do. We but 
approach our ideal results. 
Then, too, we are little gods. The life we assist in bringing 
forth comes back to us with each spring. That vine is now a 
sturdy tenant that we once coaxed anxiously to wind its weakling 
tendrils to a thread. The puny slip we cared for is now a strong 
bodied, leafy bush. All the plants that stay with us season after 
season are embodied memories of our work. Some plants we 
watch growing and strengthening from year to year; the de¬ 
scendants of the others that die with winter we make more beauti¬ 
ful in color, or in form than were their ancestors. Carefully 
watching the richest blossoms, we improve by selection, saving 
the fittest, ruthlessly destroying the rest. Perhaps grown more 
cunning we breed and train as does the stockman, until a finer 
kind is produced. And the whole garden scheme, like a tapestry 
growing with each thread, we aim to make more complete and 
perfect. For the whole world story may lie within a garden gate, 
and when we begin to get the realization that there is the same 
life in the growing garden as in us, we have advanced. 
That is the recreation of gardening. Some, as said Words¬ 
worth, believe that there is recreation in its broader sense from 
the mere companionship with Nature. Perhaps there is; but 
how much more is there in the active association with growing 
things, in shaping their development and in creating a thing of 
beauty. 
