[Illustration: A TERRIBLE EXAMPLE!]
Practicable as is the proper carrying out of the matter, in a score of
otherwise admirable gardens we have seen the results of weeks and months
of preparation either throttled and bound martyrlike to a stake or
twisted and tethered, until the natural, habit of growth was wholly
changed. In some cases the plants were so meshed in twine and choked
that it seemed as if a spiteful fairy had woven a "cat's cradle" over
them or that they had followed out the old proverb and, having been
given enough rope, literally hanged themselves. In other gardens green
stakes were set at intervals (I noticed it in the case of gladioli and
carnations especially) and strings carried from one stake to the other,
leaving each plant in the centre of a twine square, like chessmen
imprisoned on the board. But the most terrible example of all was where
either the owner or the gardener, for they were not one and the same,
had purchased a quantity of half-inch pine strips at a lumber yard and
proceeded to scatter them about his beds at random, regardless of height
or suitability, very much as if some neighbouring Fourth of July
celebration had showered the place with rocket sticks.
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