Nevertheless I
affirm that I have done all these things, and I shall even venture to
make other demands upon the public credulity.
When I first surveyed my garden sixteen years ago, a big Cupressus stood
before the front door, in a vast round bed one half of which would yield
no flowers at all, and the other half only spindlings. This was
encircled by a carriage-drive! A close row of limes, supported by more
Cupressus, overhung the palings all round; a dense little shrubbery hid
the back door; a weeping-ash, already tall and handsome, stood to
eastward. Curiously green and snug was the scene under these conditions,
rather like a forest glade; but if the space available be considered and
allowance be made for the shadow of all those trees, any tiro can
calculate the room left for grass and flowers--and the miserable
appearance of both. Beyond that dense little shrubbery the soil was
occupied with potatoes mostly, and a big enclosure for hens.
First I dug up the fine Cupressus. They told me such a big tree could
not possibly "move;" but it did, and it now fills an out-of-the-way
place as usefully as ornamentally. I suppressed the carriage-drive,
making a straight path broad enough for pedestrians only, and cut down a
number of the trees. The blessed sunlight recognized my garden once
more. Then I rooted out the shrubbery; did away with the fowl-house,
using its materials to build two little sheds against the back fence;
dug up the potato-garden--made _tabula rasa_, in fact; dismissed my
labourers, and considered.
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