well-developed calf above the “calf uppers” of utilitarian boots--now that a young man and a young woman (especially the young woman) discuss naturally the question of eugenics and marriage with that freedom which once was the sole prerogative of the prayerbook, may we not claim an enlargement of our borders to allow of the rehabilitation of the apple and the repatriation of the pear in a part of the garden where all can enjoy their decorative qualities and anticipate their gastronomic without reproach? Let us give the fruit its desserts and it will return the compliment. The Saxon earthwork below the grass walk is given over to what is technically termed “the herbaceous border,” and over one thousand eight hundred square feet there should be such a succession of flowers growing just as they please, as should delight the heart of a democracy. The herbaceous border is the democratic section of a garden. The autocrat of the Dutch and the Formal gardens is not allowed to carry out any of his foul designs of clipping or curtailing the freedom of Flora in this province. There should be no reminiscences of the tyrant stake which in far-distant days of autocracy was a barrier to the freedom of growth, nor should the aristocracy of the hot-house or even the cool greenhouse obtrude its educated bloom among the lovers of liberty. They must be allowed to do as they damplease, which is a good step beyond the ordinary doing as they please. The government of the herbaceous border is one whose aim is the glorification of the Mass as opposed to the Individual. It is not at all a bad principle--for a garden--this principle which can best be carried out by the unprincipled. English democracy includes princes and principles: but there is a species which will have nothing to do with principles because they reckon them corrupted by the first syllable, and hold that the aristocrat is like Hamlet's stepfather, whose offence was “_rank_ and smells to heaven.” I have noticed, however, in the growth of my democratic border that there are invariably a few pushing and precipitate individuals who insist on having their own way--it is contrary to the spirit of Freedom to check them--and the result is that the harmony of the whole ceases to exist. But there are some people who would prefer a Bolshevist wilderness to any garden. I have had some experience of Herbaceous Borders of mankind....