Home Gardening. — 13 



(not the wilted stuff of the dealer), peas and beans, with the 

 morning dew still on them, and melons in all their perfection, 

 freshness and lusciousness. With people of this class the 

 question of profit may have little weight ; but the home-garden 

 affords a combination of pleasure and health which nobody, and 

 be he a millionaire, can well afford to. overlook or ignore. The 

 greatest luxuries of the garden cannot be bought with mere 

 money. 



For the hard-working mechanic, on the other hand, who 

 passes so many hours daily in the dust-laden, gas-impregnated 

 atmosphere of the shop, the point of profit enters more largely 

 into this question, with that of recreation in open air, and plea- 

 surable contact with nature still prominent. The garden need 

 only be small, for much manual exercise in not often desirable, 

 although as it comes in a different way from that of the shop, 

 resting the muscles already tired, and giving exercise to those not 

 called in operation by the regular shop work (thus serving to 

 produce the natural balance of the life forces and muscles in the 

 same way as garden work served to establish the equilibrium 

 between the mental and physical functions of the office man), 

 the work of the garden may only come as a pleasant change to 

 the mechanic, and not at all appear tiresome. His good spouse, 

 less occupied with household duties than the farmer's wife, will 

 also find a needed change from indoor life and kitchen routine in 

 the fragrant atmosphere of the home garden, and the manual 

 labor for both should not be feared, for an abundant supply of 

 superior vegetables can be produced on a small piece of ground, 

 if proper tools and methods are used. 



With the farmer the question of raising vegetables is chiefly 

 one of profit, although other points are not unimportant. Many 

 farmers who till plenty of good land concentrate all their efforts 

 upon the production of wheat, corn, oats, wool, cattle or other 

 so-called " money crops," and pay little or no attention to the 

 home garden.. So we have the astonishing and deplorable fact 

 that a majority of American farmers have no garden worthy to 

 be called a " family garden," unless so named because it is entirely 

 given into the care of the already over-worked farmer's wife and 

 other members of the family, especially of the half-grown boys, 

 if they in true appreciation of the good things to be had in 

 compensation, consent to spend an extra working hour now and 

 then in hoeing and pulling weeds. Outraged nature, unappeased 

 hunger for vegetable food often makes them submit without 

 grumbling to the lesser outrage of imposing an extra amount of 

 work on their young shoulders. 



Fried Pork, fried potatoes, poor bread from poorly ground 

 flour, lardy pies, and rich cakes — these, with hardly a variation, 

 are the chief articles of food for thousands of farmer families. 



