It is not every one who can toss off his provocations with so good a
grace as our correspondent, whose letter we insert:—
NEW YORK, _April 19th_.
DEAR MR. BEECHER: Suppose you were fond of flowers and
shrubs, and that the plat of Mother Earth allotted you was
at the back of your city house, say about seventeen feet
square,—the most of it occupied by the space for drying
clothes; the rest a hard clayey soil, baked by the sun so
quickly that you wish the Israelites might have had it to
make brick, and one that no amount of foreign admixture
improves.
Suppose the florist came every spring, hoed and raked, and
distributed roses, verbenas, geraniums, and the like, at
regular intervals, also sticks, bare evidence of the
burial-place of various cherished bulbs that never come up,
but seem, like your carnations, to disappear with the
wheelbarrow.
Suppose the occupants of the tenement-house close to your
rear fence,—who always, _in all the stories_ of the day,
nurse a geranium in a cracked pot,—instead of thanking you
for the pleasant sight under their windows, garnished your
bed with egg-shells, old paper collars, rags, bones, empty
spools, and other _débris_ handy for the purpose.
Suppose the nine thousand and ninety cats and their families
roosted on the fence in the twilight, and tried their claws
on your shrubs, and the softness of your soil generally, in
the small hours of the night.
Suppose, with the first green leaves, the worms came also,
and the green lice, and the ants, and made your bushes a
sorrow and a vexation.
Suppose the hoop of the laundress was over it all, so to
speak, and the hose always burst when the weather was dry,
and your watering-pot held about a teacupful.
What would _you_ do, Mr. Beecher? Would you give over the
space to old shoes and ugliness, or would you fly in the
face of _manifest destiny_ and cultivate?
Dejectedly yours,
BREEZE.
The very first thing to be done with a tenacious and obstinate clay
soil is to have it dug out and carted away bodily, and its place
supplied with good fresh loam. This would be a serious job if there
were several acres. But when there is but a plat of seventeen feet
square, and the larger part of that reserved for laundry purposes,
only borders being used for flowers, the amount to be removed would be
comparatively small, and the satisfaction would be ample repayment.
Any one with a cart can carry off the clay, but not every one can get
good soil. An honest florist or garden jobber could put you in the way
of that.
If you will have a garden, it is best to be your own gardener. Adam
and Eve set the example.
The cats may be managed in various ways. A black-and-tan terrier kept
in the back yard has a wonderful influence on cats, arousing in them a
strong local prejudice. If the boys in the neighborhood knew that a
premium were offered for cat scalps, it would be found greatly to
interest the cats. At any rate, their number would grow less.
As to worms and aphides, no one is fit to own flowers who, in so small
a space as seventeen feet square, cannot exterminate them,—worms by
hand picking, and aphides by whale-oil soapsuds. A vigorous fidelity
will in a short time put the last worm _hors de combat_. The whale-oil
soap may be had at any large seed-store,—directions for use
accompanying the little jar. A tin garden syringe may be had at the
same place, costing but little, lasting, with care, twenty years, and
carrying the soapsuds like spray over every leaf and twig.
We, too, in Brooklyn have _lawn dresses_ with equatorial hoops, and
yet manage to have many a charming patch of flowers. But, of all
things in this world, a garden needs the presence of its owner. If you
do not love it enough to care for it as you would for a baby, better
let it alone. Flowers know who love them. They will not be put off
with arm’s-length cordiality. But, if you love them, you will easily
overcome a hundred obstacles, and rejoice in your flowers all the more
because they are the trophies of your patience and industry.