INTRODUCTION 



The Spirit of the Home Garden 



Simple ScBiresi, toitl) eberp tseahe tocll plannefi anti tocll carrieB out, result in tbe begt carteng. 

 ^be gartien must fae pours; it it is anotljer's it is not taoxti) tbe tofjile to pou, 

 a CooO garUen is tt)e one tl)at gibes its otnner tlje most pleasure: i)e map croto ortljiUs or tt)istlc», 

 S|)e measure of success in tl)e garlien is tlje sensitibe minB ratfjer tl)an tf)e plants. 



By L. H. Bailey 



HE home garden is for the affections. It is for quality. 

 Its size is wholly immaterial if only it have the best. I 

 do not mean the rarest or the costliest, but the best — the 

 best geranium or the best lilac. Even the fruit garden and 

 the vegetable garden are also for the affections: one can 

 buy ordinary fruits and vegetables — it never pays to grow them in the 

 home garden. When you want something superior, you must grow it, or 

 else buy it at an advanced price directly from some one who grows for 

 quality and not for quantity. If you want the very choicest and the most 

 personal products, almost necessarily you must grow them: the value of 

 these things cannot be measured in money. The commercial gardener 

 may grow what the market wants, and the market wants chiefly what is 

 cheap and good looking. The home gardener should grow what the market 

 cannot supply, else the home garden is not worth the while. 



A garden is a place in which plants are grown, and "plants" are herbs 

 and vines and bushes and trees and grass. Too often do persons think 

 that only formal and pretentious places are gardens. But an open lawn 

 about the house may be a garden ; so may a row of hollyhocks along the 

 wall or an arrangement of plants in the greenhouse. Usually there is some 

 central feature to a garden, a theme to which all other parts relate. This 

 may be a walk or a summer-house or a sun-dial or a garden bed or the residence 

 itself, or a brook falling down the sward between trees and bushes and clumpy 

 growths. There are as many forms and kinds of gardens as there are persons 

 who have gardens; and this is one reason why the garden appeals to every 



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