BEAUTIFUL GARDENS IN AMERICA 



rential rainfall of one section, and elsewhere the long 

 months of drought. 



Generally speaking, our country is, in most parts, a 

 land of sunshine, with usually sufficient rain and mois- 

 ture to benefit plant life, and while we grumble at our 

 sudden changes in temperature, how few of us realize 

 the blessing of an abundant sunshine pervading the "great 

 outdoors" and incidentally the gardens! 



Nowhere do flowers grow .more luxuriantly, in greater 

 variety, or through a season more prolonged than on the 

 coasts of Oregon, Washington, and California, soil, mois- 

 ture, and temperature combining to make gardening a 

 simpler task than it is elsewhere. The shore country of 

 Southern California is a perpetual garden, with a climate 

 almost unrivalled for plants and for humans. North of 

 San Francisco the near approach of the Japan Current 

 produces a climate quite similar to that of England, and 

 with the exception of possibly two months (and even then 

 an occasional Rose may bloom) flowers are found all the 

 year round. This favored section of the Northwest never- 

 theless is not visited with as much sunshine as is found 

 elsewhere, but its gardens blossom with little assistance 

 save from the frequent rainfall, more welcome to plants 

 than to men. 



In Kansas and the other flat and fertile States of the 

 Middle West the garden period, on account of the long, 

 dry summers, is usually limited to the weeks from late 

 March to late June. In the more northern temperature 



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