CHAPTER IV. FAVORITE GAR- 

 DEN FLOWERS 



IN ye olden days it was customary to grow 

 some of the flowers in the vegetable garden. 

 I have adopted this custom. Not that a 

 well-groomed vegetable garden needs any 

 floral ornaments. What could be more 

 decorative than the flowers of a row of 

 scarlet-runner beans climbing to the top of 

 poles twelve feet high? What more beautiful 

 than potato or okra blossoms? What more 

 imposing than the huge golden pumpkin blos- 

 soms, or more picturesque than the ripe green 

 or yellow pumpkins themselves, studding the 

 field after the com has been cut, or the luxuriant 

 vines on which they grew, overgrowing the 

 whole garden if you let them — and why not^ 

 after most other crops are in? 



Before the corn is cut, how gracefully its 

 broad, rustling leaves wave in the wind! How 

 stately are the pollen-laden tassels which fer- 

 tilize the silk that starts the ears! What 

 delicate shades of green and yellow and red in 

 the leaves of carrots, beets, chard! Parsley 

 needs no hair curler to look well, and crimpy 

 Savoy cabbage fascinates the eye. Red ripe 

 tomatoes (cultivated until half a century ago 

 only for their beauty — "love apples," they were 

 called) peep from the green foliage. No, I say 

 it again, the vegetable garden needs no bor- 

 rowing from the flower garden to make itself 



