be well taken. Notwithstanding this, the only fault with the secretary's policy is that it could not be made mandatory. It is a fact that most State laws hamper foresight. They fail also generally to provide for concerted team-work.

If there were no interfering State legislation it would be but natural to aim at the mobilization of all available resources of the nation in materials, machinery, and men, into a compact disciplined and centrally controlled force. Could this be carried out under one controlling head, it would be an immense but, for a capable man, by no means a hopeless undertaking. A rough estimate of the force required may be of interest. As work is now usually done, there would be needed, in addition to the laboring force of 400,000 men already mentioned, from 30,000 to 35,000 foremen, superintendents, and resident engineers, and about 10,000 instrument men, rodmen, axemen, and draftsmen. There would also be needed some 150,000 horses, 20,000 rollers, and 4,000 steam-shovels, or their equivalent, and, in addition, road machines, drags, scoops, and concrete-mixers galore. This force would use something over 53,000,000 cubic yards of road-building material. This volume would be equal to that of a dike similar to the Palisades opposite New York City, about 300 miles in length.

Whatever is to be done, however, as to organization, must be done under the laws of forty-eight States. Uniformity, however desirable, will not be possible. Even were there a willingness to strive for it, constitutional provisions will interfere. Many States forbid any public improvement by State agencies. The outlook is not too hopeful, but it is by no means hopeless. While the powers conferred on the Secretary of Agriculture are by no means so wide as to allow him to control all features of road work, he can, under them, exercise an influence of no small importance.

There is in all of us an instinctive determination not to be outdone in securing our proper share of government appropriations. Through this instinct much can be accomplished. To draw attention to this possibility, to suggest how we can take advantage of it, and to urge the necessity for success, of a popular demand

for such action, is my only warrant for this article.

There are many details that will and must form part of the government's requirements. These I shall merely mention. Such matters as nomenclature, scales, sizes of drawings, etc., will standardize themselves in some way or other; on others, such as methods of getting bids, forms of contracts and specifications, no general agreement as to methods will probably be possible. There are, however, some general principles on which Uncle Sam can insist as conditions of his extending aid. I venture to suggest the following as practicable of enforcement:

1. The formulation by law in each State of a general road policy and organization which shall provide for the proper care of every mile of road in the State, co-ordinate the activities of the different agencies in charge of work, definitely locate the responsibility for road conditions, and afford the means of enforcing the proper penalty for failure.

2. The planning of State road systems, including the location of roads, the character of work to be done on them, the order of their improvement, and the probable cost thereof. In no other way can a comprehensive plan for interstate routes be laid down by the general government. It is only too clear that State road plans laid out at this time can only be tentative. Traffic will develop along unexpected lines and plans must be changed to suit conditions. Even in so old and densely populated a State as New Jersey, the unforeseen growth of the munition business has played havoc with the plans for road work, but necessary changes can be made.

The preliminary plans of the Panama Canal were none the less valuable because during the period of construction the growth in ship dimensions made changes in the design necessary. Such changes are well-nigh inevitable in any important work the execution of which will cover a period of years. The character of the road must depend on the amount and character of traffic. What these will be after improvement cannot be foretold with our present data, excepting in a haphazard way. That a method based on ascertainable facts can be devised to re

place present neglect of this precaution, or the guesswork that is not much better than neglect, is, I believe, indisputable. For a new line of railroad, the traffic department reports on probable business, its data are given the same consideration as those of the engineering staff, and its predictions are usually equally trustworthy. Even if exact prophecy is impossible, approximate knowledge will be a sufficient guide. The forecasting of traffic is also necessary to allow of intelligent decision as to the order of construction.

He would, indeed, be a bold man who, remembering the development of the last ten years, would care to foretell the cost of work ten years hence. Not only have unit prices increased, but the amount of traffic has grown beyond all belief. Future increases may involve changes in design and construction. Unit prices will depend mainly on the labor supply and demand, and on our providing conditions under which it will pay to install laborsaving machinery. As to the former, I can see no probability of return to antewar wages; as to the latter, the work must be planned on big lines, such that it will pay the States or their contractors to provide the outfit needed to do it in the most modern and American way. As to character of roads, let us frankly admit that past growth has caught our road authorities unawares and unprepared. This, I submit, may be excused. It will, however, not be excusable if, with this experience in mind, the same thing happens again, and happen it will unless the solution of the problem is reached in a modern way.

3. A definite financial scheme should be required of each State. These must vary, but they can be formulated in each State. Their thoroughness must depend on the planning of the road system; but, even if costs are roughly approximated, some financial plan is far better than none. It must include in its forecasts not only road construction but the repair, depreciation, and betterment charges, as well as the costs of administration. The latter are sure to be higher, but without this increase thoroughness and economy will be out of the question.

4. A system of accounting and cost keeping that will not only be formally

correct but which will include such surveys of traffic as will allow the unit cost of the service rendered to be accurately determined. Of the great services which our American engineers have rendered of late years, possibly the greatest has been the weight and importance they have given to the correct and exact recording of every item of cost. This is impossible without accurate and detailed bookkeeping. The exaggerated caricatures of the application of this principle that we sometimes get from so-called "efficiency experts" are no argument against its proper use. As to accounting of this sort, our highway engineering has differed from other progressive American work, but only in the failure to apply the principle, not in the need thereof.

These four requirements-a policy covering organization and fixing responsibility, thorough planning of work, financial provisions, and accurate accountingmust be enforced on all road authorities if the best results are to be secured. Its full enforcement may to-day be impossible as to the minor political subdivisions. It may take years to produce the necessary force and to educate the people into demanding the thoroughness and foresight in road work that marks our railroad service, but until they are thus educated, the end will not be fully obtained.

It is here that the participation of the federal government becomes of value. It might keep the $75,000,000 it has voted to spend on roads, if it could otherwise become the leading factor, the one which can require others to conform to its views and ways, and by this insistence lead the general public to believe its demands possible and reasonable. The power of the federal government, properly exerted, will be worth many times its $75,000,000; on the other hand, it can, by lax methods, allow its own cash and that of the States to go as do the other millions it has thrown in the past and is yet throwing into the "pork barrel."

Here let me repeat the assertion of the importance of holding up the hands of the secretary on whom devolves this great responsibility. The published express sions of the present incumbent of that office (Review of Reviews, September, 1916), the instructions and the preliminary

HERE be delights," says an ancient writer, "that will fetch the day about from sun to sun and rock the tedious year as in a delightful dream." Thus, and very much after this manner, the charming old prose-poet, amiably gardenmade, continues, page after page, to describe the "1,000 delights" to be found in the "flowery orchard" of his century describes them with an abandon of happiness that suggests the rapture of Saint Bernard when hymning the New Jerusalem!

In fact, barring the equally ancient and alluring pastime of going a-fishing, no hobby has a stronger grip on its devotees than gardening. At four o'clock of a summer morning Celia Thaxter could be found at work in her radiant little island plot, a sister in spirit to old Chaucer when on his knees in the grass at dawn to watch a daisy open. And these were not exceptional, not extraordinary cases of devotion; they were merely typical exponents of the true gardener's passion.

Nor is this tense enthusiasm fleeting. Not in the least! It is no more transient than the bibliomaniac's passion, no more evanescent than the collector's zeal, which only death can quench. It is no sudden, youthful fervor; indeed, it is rarely found in youth at the storm-and-stress period, while it may be observed to be strongest in those for whom the days of wild enthusiasm are over. The bachelor clergyman or the quietest of spinsters, for whom other passion is non-existent, will yet lavish on their gardens enough devotion to have won the heart of the most obdurate of persons, enough tenderness to have sufficed for the mothering of a dozen little ones. A garden is the world of the recluse, the passion of the lone man or woman, the diversion of statesmen, the recreation of poets and artists of all ages-except, perhaps, musicians, who may be overcareful of their hands. It is the plaything of monarchs, the solace

of the prisoner; it is also the delight of little children.

No passion is more democratic than that of love for a garden. The love of literature, of art, or of music can, it is true, occupy mind and heart with equal completeness, but in all of these the joy of creation is limited inevitably to the gifted few. The passion for a garden, however, and the joy of making one may exist alike in millionaire and washerwoman; the day-laborer, returning from his work, betakes himself to tending his rose-bush, and so, perhaps, does the banker; learned and illiterate may be alike in their devotion to their gardens; to saint and sinner, otherwhere poles apart, it is common ground; ill-tempered and serene are one in their tenderness for their plants. "Oh, I forgot the violets!" exclaimed Landor in a shocked tone after (according to tradition) hurling his manservant through the window to the violet bed below.

Since so much enjoyment is to be had in the cultivation of a bit of ground, it is a pity that it is ever missed and that the care of garden and grounds should become for any one a perfunctory thing. Yet in suburb after suburb one sees lawn after lawn whose treatment is wholly perfunctory; they are as ready-made and uniform as the contractor's houses, made by the dozen, that they garnish. These little yards reflect no more the thought and personality of the owner than a sample drawing-room or dining-room or bedroom fitted up in a department-store radiates charm and personality. Evidently the same nurseryman's agent has been about and sold to each owner the same small evergreens.

Very noteworthy it is, that those to whom the garden is a source of vivid pleasure do a part or most of the work of it themselves. This practice seems to be a necessary precursor of the happiness. A garden may make incessant demands on the time and energy and patience of its author-demands as exacting and con

tinuous as those of a child on its nurse or mother, and yet, like the child, its very dependence makes it the more beloved.

For real enjoyment the garden must be considered as a work of art, not as a "chore," and one's plants as friends and intimates, not employees. A garden on a business basis is another matter. It may yield a certain amount of pleasure and satisfaction, but never the joy of a garden grown just for itself. The plants must conform to certain standards; definite results are expected, and failure to attain these means disappointment and loss.

One may smile at a gypsy kettle filled with coleus, at a boat marooned with its cargo of flowering plants in the midst of a sun-scorched lawn, but none the less these express a definite creative effort on the part of the author and are probably the source of keen pride and enjoyment. The impulse is the same as when the millionaire drags marble exedræ to an Adirondack lodge and worries a rustic bungalow with a Florentine well-head-and no more discreditable.

One of the sweetest characteristics of a garden-chiefest, I think, of its "1,000 delights"—is that its charm is wholly unrelated to the amount of money spent upon it. The simplest of little gardens may have more of this lovely and endearing quality of charm than the most pretentious of estates. For garden art for the sake of aggrandizement always misses charm. The display may have cost thousands, but if the purpose is to make as startling an effect as possible for the astounding of the visitor or passer-by, rather than the pleasure and happiness of the owner, such gardening must always miss charm. Like the prayer of the Pharisee, it "has its reward" and is seen of men. The kingdom of art, no more than the kingdom of heaven, is entered into that way.

The garden art for which I hold a brief is within the reach of every one who loves the plants enough to place them where they can grow happily and be in harmony with the house, the situation, and each other.

Much has been written about the beauty of wide stretches of turf, about the wisdom of massing the shrubbery and "creating a park-like effect," which is an

excellent thing when the grounds are spacious enough to admit of such treatment. The wide greensward framed in flowering shrubs and trees is restful, indeed, to look upon and should be a part of every place blessed with sufficient ground. But the garden which is loved and labored in and enjoyed to the utmost is the flower-garden -a flower-garden close enough to a man's house to be lived in, not one which has for its purpose the making of an effect from a distance. A rose is the same whether grown in a nursery row or trained on a trellis around one's window, but the latter becomes a friend and intimate and is beloved accordingly, increasingly as the years go by. It is for this reason, that they never become really "at home," that the so-called "bedding plants" are few in the gardens of real flower-lovers. They are transients-outside talent brought in temporarily for display-and so are not comparable in interest with the little crocus that comes up every year in the grass and may be loved and looked for.

To most amateurs the real fun of gardening is in the flower-garden, with its incessant claim on one for attention-incessant, as I have said before, as that of a baby on its nurse or its mother. And (like the infant) it yields to its admiring parent "1,000 delights," although less prejudiced observers may fail to locate these. The tiniest garden has room for infinite possibilities and gives room for endless experimenting-now in the naturalizing of some wild flower, now in the cultivation of some garden sport. The sight in a pasture of a squat little appletree, cropped year after year by cows until it is as much of a shrub and more than a Japanese quince, suggests that one might make a hedge of apple-trees. And how interesting to try! A New Hampshire artist, Mr. Stephen Parrish, clips his Spirea Van Houttei, after it has finished blooming, into as stiff a hedge as English holly, and it finishes the summer as a formal background for gorgeously colored phlox. Another artist-gardener has made house plants of tiny hemlock-trees and used the common pine for topiary work. No less a gardener than Robert Cameron, of the Harvard botanic garden, holds the theory-like that which some of our most advanced psychologists hold