Now, when we so preach we try also to make it very plain that there is
not one set of rules for gardening on a small scale of expense in a
small piece of ground, and another set for gardening on a larger scale.
For of course the very thing which makes the small garden different from
the large, the rich man's from the poor man's, the Scotch or Italian
peasant's from the American mechanic's, or the public garden from the
private, is the universal and immutable oneness of the great canons of
art. One of our competitors, having honestly purged her soul of every
impulse she may ever have had to mimic the gardening of the cemeteries,
planted her dooryard with a trueness of art which made it the joy of
all beholders. Only then was it that a passing admirer stopped and
cried: "Upon me soul, Mrs. Anonyma, yir gyairden looks joost loike a
pooblic pairk!" He meant--without knowing it--that the spot was lovely
for not trying to look the least bit like a public park, and he was
right. She had kept what it would be well for the public gardeners to
keep much better than some of them do--the Moral Law of Gardening.
* * * * *
There is a moral law of gardening. No garden should ever tell a lie. No
garden should ever put on any false pretence. No garden should ever
break a promise. To the present reader these proclamations may seem very
trite; it may seem very trite to say that if anything in or of a garden
is meant for adornment, it must adorn; but we have to say such things to
many who do not know what trite means--who think it is something you buy
from the butcher.
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