WHAT WAS DONE WITH IT, 7 



lawn is the labor. There was my own labor. Could 

 I not push the lawn-mower myself? Many of the 

 gentlemen near by did so. Why could I not do like- 

 wise ? No reason whatever why I might not in this 

 way save part of the expense of a lawn. 



Now a lawn-mower is very well in its way. It's not 

 very hard work to use it, and it keeps a man out in the 

 air and sunshine. The chief objection is that it is not 

 work enough. It pays to work out of doors. For 

 every man who works a part of the day in the house 

 there should be several hours devoted to exercise in 

 the open air. A garden is a sanitary measure. It 

 takes you out on the sweet, healthful ground. A gar- 

 den is a good place to bury headaches. That settled 

 the matter, and I decided to use all the available land 

 for a flower and kitchen garden. There were two 

 other reasons, beside the sanitary advantage, for 

 having a garden. In suburban tovynsand villages 

 the rent is for the house, and the lot of land on which 

 it stands is practically thrown in free. It costs no 

 more to have the house without the land than with it, 

 for as soon as the land becomes too valuable, the 

 houses cover all the land as in a city. If the land is 

 used for a garden it will make a solid financial return, 

 while a lawn pays nothing beyond the doubtful value 

 of looking pretty from the road and the Christian 

 grace of doing as you would be done by in the matter 

 of weeds. All this had been settled when the lettuce 

 seed was bought, and on the seventh of May, 1887, I 

 put spade in the new venture. 



It wasn't really a spade, for a digging fork is better. 

 On that seventh of May I bought a digging fork, hoe 

 and steel rake at a total expenditure of $1.38, and the 

 handkerchief garden began. I had previously bought 

 for $1 60 ten plants of the "Jessie" strawberry, and 

 they had been kept in a friend's garden while absent 



