orror. We are resolved to progress from the
geranium age to the hardy perennial class, and are industriously
studying books and magazines with that end in view. The worst of garden
literature is that it is nearly all written for an Eastern climate. Once
I subscribed for a garden magazine, lured by a bargain three months'
offer. Never again! At the end of the time, when no regular subscription
came in from me, letters began to arrive. Finally one saying, "You
probably think this is another letter urging you to subscribe. It is
not; it is only to beg that you will confidentially tell us why you do
not." I told him that all our conditions here are so different from
those in the East. People want Italian and Spanish gardens, and there is
the most marvellous choice of flowers, shrubs, and vines with which to
get them, but we want to be told how, and added to this, it is
heart-breaking to love a fountain nymph in the advertisements and to
find that her travelling expenses would bankrupt you.

One marvellous opportunity we have--the San Diego Exposition, whose
gardens are more lovely than ever, though soldiers and sailors are
feeding the pigeons in the Plaza de Panama instead of tourists. The real
intention of that exposition was to show people in this part of the
world what they could do with the great variety of plants and shrubs
that thrive here.

I used to wonder why so little has been written about gardeners when
there are shelves and shelves of volumes on gardens. There are no famous
gardeners in literature that occur to me at the moment except Tagore's,
and the three terrified ones in _Alice's Adventures in Wonderland_, who
were hurriedly painting the white roses red. I should love to read the
diary of the one who trimmed the borders while Boccaccio's gay company
were occupying that garden; or to hear what the head gardener of the
d'Este's could tell us, but I know now why it is so. With the best of
intentions I haven't been able to avoid the pitfall myself.

[Illustration]

THORNS

There may be a more smiling hill-top than "La Collina Ridente" somewhere
on the Southern California edge of the Pacific Ocean, but deep down in
my heart I don't believe that there is. It is just the right size
hill-top--except when I first began to drive the motor, and then it
seemed a trifle small for turning around. It's just high enough above
the coast highway and the town to give us seclusion, and it's just far
enough from