CHAPTER XIV 



The Vegetable Garden Beautiful 



THE vegetable garden is very badly treated. Our attitude 

 toward it is unfortunate, both for ourselves and for it — 

 and there is no excuse for it. There is positively no 

 reason for hiding it in out-of-the-way comers, or squeezing it 

 into grudgingly yielded spaces, if really worthy care and thought 

 are given it. If it began with a plan just as painstakingly worked 

 out as that for a flower garden or a landscape we would have 

 no reason for hiding it. 



Vegetable gardens are not usually attractive from an esthetic 

 point of view, to be sure — but small wonder w^hen we consider 

 how shabbily these most useful of all gardens have been dealt 

 with, for time out of mind. They have been given no chance to 

 be beautiful, because everyone is thoroughly convinced that 

 beauty and utility are hopelessly incompatible — in gardening 

 anyway. Daily we hear more and more about beauty and 

 utility being sister and brother — some are even putting forth 

 the claim that they are twins — still no one ever seems to think of 

 testing the truth of the assertion, outdoors, on and in the 

 ground. 



Yet, if it is true at all, this is just as true outdoors as it is in; 

 with plants and fruits as with furniture and fittings. In the old, 

 old days, in the old world when gardening was carried on behind 



(143) 



