Book Reviews 



The Lure of the Garden. Hildegarde Hawthorne. Quarto. 

 259 pp. 48 full page plates, 16 in color. The Century Co. $4.50. 



In these winter days when the garden lover must, perforce, 

 spend his spare moments in anticipation or rumination, this book 

 is a delightful companion of the long evenings and the open fire. 

 The subject, the author, and publisher have conspired to pro- 

 duce an exquisite volume. Open where you will, you are 

 charmed with the text and fascinated with the quaint illustra- 

 tions. The Chapter headings are : 



Our Grandmothers' Gardens ; Childhood in the Garden ; Gar- 

 dens and Groups ; Garden Gates ; Washington's Garden ; Winter 

 Wonder; The Social Side of Gardens; Gardens of Some Well- 

 known People ; Gardens in Literature ; Some Garden \ ices ; 

 Gardens Public and Botanical. 



"Some Garden Vices" struck my fancy, perhaps through sym- 

 pathy, possibly from the apparent impossibility of the thing, 

 and I turned to this chapter to begin my reading. The lure of 

 the book led me on until I had read it all. But a sample of that 

 first dip into the pages is an excellent specimen of the author's 

 charm : 



"Even the mildest and best-behaved of gardens is liable to 

 sudden lapses, to hideous indulgences. Sometimes you are 

 tempted to believe that only the gardener is ever aware of the 

 power and the omnipresence of evil. Some gardens simply turn 

 lazy. Encourage them, prod them, feed them, and water them as 

 you will, they retain an obstinate inertness. They grow nothing, 

 they do nothing, they gape shamelessly in your face throughout the 

 radiant summer. Or else they turn to weeds. Weeds are. of course, 

 a constant temptation to gardens, even those of the strongest char- 

 acter and finest manners. Hardly any garden but will devote twice 

 the time and trouble to raising some particularly ugly weed 

 than it can be induced to bestow on the upbringing of your love- 

 liest annuals or most carefully cherished perennials. Human 

 mothers are said often to prefer their misformed or wayward 

 children to the good and beautiful ones. Gardens reveal this 

 trait to a dismaying extent. The pity and love shown to its 

 ugliest weed by the average garden is touching, if it were not 

 so infuriating." 



As a whole, the book must certainly be accorded a con- 

 spicuous place on any shelf of garden literature, and will. I 

 fancy, maintain a position of prestige for years to come. 



