The Garden, You, and I

New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd. 1906
All rights reserved
Copyright, 1906, By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped. Published June, 1906. Norwood Press J.S. Cushing & Co.—Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
This book is for those who in treading the garden path have no thought of material gain; rather must they give,—from the pocket as they may,—from the brain much,—and from the heart all,—if they would drink in full measure this pure joy of living.
Allons! the road is before us! It is safe—I have tried it—my own feet have tried it well—be not detained.
Walt Whitman.

Out of the veins of the world comes the blood of me; The heart that beats in my side is the heart of the sea; The hills have known me of old, and they do not forget; Long ago was I friends with the wind; I am friends with it yet. —Gerald Gould.
Whenever a piece of the land is to be set apart for a garden, two mighty rulers must be consulted as to the boundaries. When this earth child is born and flower garnished for the christening, the same two must be also bidden as sponsors. These rulers are the Sun and the Wind. The sun, if the matter in hand is once fairly spread before him and put in his charge, is a faithful guardian, meeting frankness frankly and sending his penetrating and vitalizing messengers through well-nigh inviolable shade. But of the wind, who shall answer for it or trust it? Do we really ever learn all of its vagaries and impossible possibilities?
If frankness best suits the sun, diplomacy must be our shield of defence windward, for the wind is not one but a composite of many moods, and to lure one on, and skilfully but not insultingly bar out another, is our portion. To shut out the wind of summer, the bearer of vitality, the uplifter of stifling vapours, the disperser of moulds, would indeed be an error; therefore, the great art of the planters of a garden is to learn the ways of the wind and to make friends with it. If the soil is sodden and sour, it may be drained and sweetened; if it is poor, it may be nourished; but when all this is done, if the garden lies where the winds of winter and spring in passing swiftly to and fro whet their steel-edged tempers upon it, what avails?