SHALL we keep the old-fashioned gardens where all the good and simple flowers which we loved in childhood grew in unstinted profusion? Or shall we lead against them a crusade of modern gardening and eliminate them from the land ? Some still live upon the memory of them and think that they are the most satisfying types of gardening; others see in them only crudity and conventionalism and would sacrifice them all to present ideals. And there are some who think there are room and occasion for both. We cannot escape the conviction that some of these old gardens are often better adapted to small and country places than our modern creations. Modern gardening - if by that term we mean the application of the principles of landscape gardening - demands a considerable extent of ground for its full expression, or when we apply a few of its principles to a small area, as a farmer's yard, we assume some love of it or appreciation of it in the owner, or some harmony of surroundings which appear to demand it. But the primitive and tangled garden demands no excuse for its existence, and it harmonizes with the time-worn cottage or farmhouse, the genius of sheds, fences and lanes, and more than all, the owners are satisfied with it.

Sometime, when the country is older, softer and less picturesque, men may want the greater precision of our truer ideals, but in this generation let us keep some of the tangled door-yards.

There is another type of old gardens which is known by the most exact geometric designs and the closest attention to many details of balancing and condensation. About these there is little to admire, perhaps, for they appear to be too conscious of their own existence. One of our readers thinks the time is come for their extinction, although he lingers upon them with a tender memory : -

"1 see it now - a Procrustean acre surrounded by a picket fence, a straight walk down the center; on one side vegetables, on the other side flowers and ornamental shrubs; circular flower beds on the right, square beds of beets and lettuce on the left. One might go forth with his eyes shut, year after year, and find the parsnips, the cucumbers, and the onions, the zinnias, the tulips, and bachelor buttons, just where they always grew - a half acre of sentiment, balanced by a half acre of skill.. The sweet corn, the melons, and the Lima beans were considered too delicate and extracting in their nature to be exposed to the vicissitudes to which their more robust relatives of the farm were subjected. They must be sheltered within a special enclosure and receive all the resources of the barnyard. No clumsy horse might be admitted within the sacred grounds, save possibly to tarn a few furrows in the spring, and even this was looked upon as an invasion of the rights belonging to the spade.

"In like manner the little plot of art across the path was considered too good to associate with the rest of the landscape, planned and planted by nature. Here alone, behind the picket fence, and beneath the exotic lilac bush, might one come if he wished to enjoy to the full his love for the beautiful. There are signs that the old-fashioned garden, with all its memories and pleasant associations, its narrowness and limitations, is passing away. The new conditions of cur western life are compelling people to think, even on emotions like this, and it is coming to be understood more and more that natural conditions are more important to be understood than artificial methods in the cultivation of vegetables, and that in the planting of ornamental grounds, adaptation to circumstances and an effort to preserve and supplement whatever is attractive in the natural surroundings will bring most satisfactory results".