GARDEN BOOKS 



(alas, I must also add high-priced!) things; such 

 published straws show the direction of the horti- 

 cultural breeze. May this breeze become a wind 

 strong enough to bear to us interested in the best 

 development of gardening in America books by 

 our own amateurs so delightfully and intelligently 

 written that what is there set down shall help the 

 matter with every page. 



To return again to catalogues for a moment 

 two or three American lists show great care and 

 constant improvement in this direction, but none 

 as yet, I believe, quite approach those of R. 

 Wallace and Sons, of Colchester, England; of 

 Barr & Sons; of T. Smith, of Newry, Ireland. 

 Smith's list of spring-blooming plants and al- 

 pines is of immense value to all as a little refer- 

 ence-book, complete botanically and with admi- 

 rable descriptions of color. 



Misleading pictures appear to this day in some 

 of our seed-lists the beribboned curving drive 

 through an estate; the copious and vicious use of 

 some of the early tulips such as Keizerkroon (whose 

 publicly declared enemy I am and shall be until 

 it is better used); the round bed which, as an 

 agreeable man of my acquaintance says, "used to 

 bust up the front lawn." All these things are still 



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