52 VARIETY IN THE LITTLE GARDEN 



— have changed each leaf from a fresh green thing to that 

 twisted, curved and coppery object which, as Dean Bailey of 

 the Cleveland Art Museum told a group of gardeners lately, 

 is to the artist the loveliest of all aspects of the leaf. 



Of what does the gardener think as he sees these drifting 

 tokens of the coming winter, as he does the last covering of 

 plants, polishing, oiling and putting away of tools? He thinks — 

 for the true gardener is always an imaginative person — of 

 spring. He knows these plants will rise again in beauty. He 

 sees, with that eye of the imagination that penetrates the 

 blackest storms and the whitest snows of winter, the green buds 

 of the lilacs in their April breaking; and he prepares from now 

 on for that time. 



Two practical suggestions I would make for winter gardening, 

 as we may properly call it. Buy and read good garden-books 

 and magazines and plan to get endless seed, plant, shrub and 

 tree catalogues or lists. For magazines I could not myself do 

 without the Garden Magazine, which has been my companion 

 since its very first number; and I should be sorry to miss each 

 month Mr. Madison Cooper's paper, the Flower Grower, friendly 

 and brimming with practical help for all who garden. 



Let us turn now to seed and plant lists — the trade lists. 

 The mention of the gardening periodicals has come first because 

 it is in the advertising columns of those papers that the ad- 

 dresses of dealers will be found. In the two I have named there 

 are such addresses throughout the year; in all other magazines 

 and papers the great spring flood of such annoimcements begins 

 just after Christmas. As early as November I should start 

 sending out postal cards asking for seed-lists. The gardening 

 habit is now so general in America, the wish to plant and grow 

 in the little garden is so widespread, that the non-disappointed 

 one is he who writes early and receives his seeds a month 



