THE AMATEUR GARDEN 



they are ours truly and do not even have to be 

 "'phoned." I should rather have in my library 

 my Bailey's "American Cyclopedia of Horticul- 

 ture," than any two garden periodicals once a 

 month. These, too, I value, but, for me, they are 

 over-apt to carry too much deckload of the ad- 

 vice and gentle vaun tings of other amateurs. 

 I have an amateur's abhorrence of amateurs ! 

 The Cyclopedia knows, and will always send me 

 to the right books if it cannot thresh a matter out 

 with me itself. Before Bailey my fount of knowl- 

 edge was Mr. E. J. Canning, late of Smith Col- 

 lege Botanic Gardens ; a spring still far from dry. 



As the books enjoin, I began my book-garden- 

 ing with a plan on paper; not the elaborate thing 

 one pays for when he can give his garden more 

 money than time, but a light sketch, a mere 

 fundamental suggestion. This came profession- 

 ally from a landscape-architect. Miss Frances 

 BuUard, of Bridgeport, Connecticut, who had 

 just finished plotting the grounds of my neigh- 

 bor, the college. 



I tell of my own garden for another reason: 

 that it shows, I think, how much can be done 



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