HARDY PLANTS FOR COTTAGE 

 GARDENS 



IN THE BEGINNING 



| HE impression made by certain garden books upon 

 the mind of a reader is that in America a success- 

 ful garden springs from the soil much as Minerva 

 did from the head of Jupiter. Opening wide his 

 wicket gate the author discloses hundreds of rosebushes bend- 

 ing under a perfumed burden; he points to shrubs of giant 

 height and multitudes of perennials, difficult to raise, that are 

 perpetually in bloom. Though the author may touch blithely 

 upon the possible disasters of the floral kingdom, they are 

 treated more as a matter of tradition than as a present evil; 

 his larkspurs show no blight, his hollyhocks are free from rust; 

 his lilies fail not from mites or drought. Apparently all is 

 smooth sailing from start to finish; yet we, who have dabbled 

 a bit with Nature, read with mixed emotions as we recall sea- 

 sons of despair over our own roses, lilies, larkspurs and holly- 

 hocks; for these wayward inhabitants of our garden have had 

 an unfortunate habit of contracting every known disease. 

 Other unhappy memories of defeat and loss rise up and 

 darken the page. Our humiliation is needless; for, in the 

 flush of success, authors have thoughtlessly omitted any men- 

 tion of mistakes. 



The present volume is not an ambitious contribution to the 

 subject of floriculture; it is a faithful record of the ignorance, 

 repeated failures and disheartening losses that have attended 



