PREFACE 



THE advent of this book occurs at a very auspicious 

 time. The great European War has been instrumental 

 in revealing unpleasant facts concerning the nation's 

 stores of food. The high price and comparative scarcity of 

 vegetables, for example, has brought home to every one the 

 loss which is yearly incurred by allowing the ornamental to 

 overrun and overshadow the importance of the useful. In 

 many gardens the vegetable quarters appear to exist as painful 

 necessities rather than first-class adjuncts to the household 

 and national well-being, by providing healthful food materials. 

 The pleasure of cutting, cooking, and eating one's own vegetables 

 is one which the possessor of even the smallest plot of garden 

 ground may enjoy, despite the limitation thereof ; and I trust this 

 book may be useful in encouraging and helping many a hitherto 

 neglected piece of ground to assume an air of prosperity, and 

 be a source of profit to its cultivator. 



I do not pretend to claim anything new so far as general 

 cultural principles are concerned ; but, wishing to keep on the 

 practical side, I have adopted the system of grouping together 

 those vegetables possessing cultural affinity, rather than an 

 arrangement based upon botanical, alphabetical, or other formal 

 considerations. Such grouping of subjects, too, facilitates and 

 assists the selection of vegetables for a correct rotation of crops 

 and the choosing of suitable subjects for the quality, consistency, 

 and position of the soil at command. As both these con- 

 siderations have a most important bearing upon the successful 

 growing of vegetables, a system of groups that indicates plainly 

 the calibre and manner of growth of any vegetable should prove 

 most useful to the cultivator. 



I have introduced to notice some vegetable products which 

 are, as a rule, but imperfectly understood and rarely cultivated 

 in any serious quantity with an eye to general utilization as an 

 addition to food supplies ; and in doing this, I do not wish to 



