xii A FOREWORD AND A PLEA 



of leanness when Chicory and Buttercups must needs 

 come in and hide neglect and failure; the child throve, 

 until now, in its maturity, it is a companion that never 

 palls, a friend that never fails, a never-ending source of 

 refreshment, comfort, and entertainment. 



It seems agreed that a hobby, not overridden, is a 

 wise possession for every one, and it has grown on me, 

 during these gardening years, that no hobby is so safe and 

 sane for a woman as a garden. It centres about the 

 home; the children and other members of the family 

 may have a part in it; friends enjoy it, and the influence 

 of its beauty and sweetness reaches far and wide. In a 

 book called " Rural Essays," written some seventy 

 years ago by Charles Downing, the "father of land- 

 scape gardening in America," he asks: "What is the 

 reason that American l&dies don't love to work in their 

 gardens?" He says they like to "putter about" and 

 sow a few China Aster seeds, and that a bouquet upon 

 the centre table is a necessity to them, but, beyond this, 

 they do not go; and then he draws very uncompli- 

 mentary comparisons between us and our English 

 cousins. But this was seventy years ago, and I am sure, 

 if Mr. Downing could return, he would admit that we 

 have begun to take a good deal more than a "puttering" 

 interest in our gardens, that we dare to go out of doors 

 sensibly clad and dig in the ground, wheel a barrow and 

 plant and reap and exult after the manner of our broth- 

 ers and husbands, experiencing the delicious weariness 



