THE AMERICAN GARDEN 



rule without oppression, and it will not be truly 

 American if it fails to show at a glance that 

 it is not overgardened. 



Thus do we propose to exhort our next sea- 

 son's competitors as this fall and winter they 

 gather at our projected indoor garden-talks, or 

 as we go among them to offer counsel concerning 

 their grounds plans for next spring. And we 

 hope not to omit to say, as we had almost omit- 

 ted to say here, in behalf of the kind of garden 

 we preach, that shrubs, the most of them, re- 

 quire no great enrichment of the soil — an im- 

 portant consideration. And we shall take much 

 care to recommend the perusal of books on gar- 

 dening. Once this gentle art was largely kept a 

 close secret of craftsmen; but now all that can 

 be put into books is in books, and the books are 

 non-technical, brief and inexpensive; or if vo- 

 luminous and costly, as some of the best needs 

 must be, are in the public libraries. In their 

 pages are a host of facts (indexed !) which once 

 had to be burdensomely remembered. For one 

 preoccupied with other cares — as every ama- 

 teur gardener ought to be — these books are 



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