CHAPTER XXXI. 

 PICTURESQUE VEGETABLE GARDENING. 



THE common idea that vegetable gardening is all that is 

 ugly is far from true, and at the present time it is im- 

 portant to persuade as many folks as possible that even 

 this form of gardening, although not so romantic as flower 

 gardening, is not without a certain beauty of its own. 

 This beauty is of a different kind from that we look for 

 in flower gardening ; there we look for direct colour 

 effects ; but in the vegetable border, though colour is 

 possible, we must look more for the beauty of form, which 

 is by no means absent. 



At the time of writing there has been an appeal to 

 everyone to grow food. We are not asked to give up all 

 our flower borders, we are not asked to give up our lawn 

 or our wild-garden, but merely to do our duty in producing 

 more food for the nation than before. In some cases it 

 may be necessary to give up flower borders for vegetable 

 growing, and there will be few of us who may not have to 

 sacrifice at least one border to the culture of vegetables 

 for the time being. 



Some alarmists have recently been preaching the doctrine 

 that no flowers at all should be grown in borders this 

 year. They do not object to a window-box or two, full 

 of flowers, but they say that every bit of land outside 

 should be laid down with vegetables. Food first, they 

 say; flowers second. 



If there was a dearth of land in England I should be 

 the first to say that every flower garden should be turned 

 nto an allotment or a kitchen garden ; but as there is 



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