64 MY HANDKERCHIEF GARDEN. 



too much of a good thing, and the surplus was pre- 

 sented to appreciative neighbors. 



Herein is one of the great advantages of a home 

 lot — it tends to cultivate a generous heart in the gar- 

 dener and a thankful spirit in his friends. You are 

 pretty sure to have at times more than you want, and 

 there is no better compliment to pay to a friend than 

 a basket of fresh vegetables, wet with the dew, and 

 right out of the home garden. People receive it with 

 an expression that seems to say, *' How very sweet in 

 you, to be sure," and back comes the basket with a 

 note of thanks calculated to fill the heart with the 

 conviction that the world is not all a hollow show 

 after all. There is one thing you can always present to 

 a lady, and that's a flower. Why not a cauliflower? 

 Is not a cabbage a green rose? Pull off the outer 

 petals till the white heart begins to shine, pack it in 

 a neat basket and send it to your friend's table. If 

 she's a housemother with a soul above Kensington 

 crewel she will say, and say truly, it is beautiful. 

 Green lawns and shrubbery have their own glory, but 

 there is also a glory of the cabbage patch and, 

 though *'the glory of one star" may not be "as the 

 glory of another star," who shall say which is the 

 greater glory ? 



My home lot account was opened November ist, 

 1887. There were then on hand in the garden sixty- 

 four plants of the Jessie strawberry, worth say 64 

 cents, a lot of currant cuttings worth §1, tools, flower 

 pots and odd things worth $2, giving a stock on hand 

 to begin the year of $2.64. There was paid out be- 

 tween that time and September 5th, 1888, just $14.64. 

 Of this $4.40 was for 200 pounds of Mape's fertilizer, 

 $1.10 for materials for a cold frame covered with pro- 

 tective cloth and $1.75 for labor. Of course, if this 

 sum had been invested in vegetables it would have 



