Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 173, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 August 1918 — Old Plea for Gardens. [ARTICLE]

Old Plea for Gardens.

“Plantations have one advantage in them which is not to be found in most other works, as they give a pleasure of a more lasting date, and continually -Improve in the eye. of the planter. When you have finished a building, or any other undertaking of the like nature, it immediately decays upon your hands; you see it brought to the utmost point of perfection, and from that time hastening to its ruin. On the contrary, when you have finished your plantations they are still arriving at greater degrees of perfection as long as you live and appear more delightful in every succeeding year than they did in the foregoing. But I do not only recommend this art to men of estates as a pleasing amusement, but as it is a kind of virtuous employment, and may, therefore, be inculcated by moral motives; particularly from the love which we ought to have for our country, and the regard which we ought to bear to our posterity.” The. extract is from an essay by Joseph Addison, which appeared in the London Spectator August 29, 1714. England did about as Addison suggested, with the result that English gardens are noted the world over, and Englishmen are better for them.