CHAPTER XI 

 INDOOR GARDENS 



The fun of having the best fruit, fresh vegetables all winter, and 

 flowers the year round The pleasure of collecting A cheap 

 greenhouse at last 



THE English people seem to get about one hundred times as 

 much pleasure out of greenhouses as we do, and it is possi- 

 ble that they always will. For they have agreat climatic 

 advantage over the people of the northern United States in the 

 mildness of their winter, which has a delightful effect upon one's 

 coal bill. If you add to this that labour is cheaper there than here, 

 and that every one is interested in gardening, there can be little 

 wonder that everybody seems to have a greenhouse. The mere 

 fact that a greenhouse enables a family to enjoy gardening the 

 year round and especially during the five months when trees 

 are bare would account for much. 



But the English have one powerful incentive to greenhouse 

 building that we do not have. They cannot ripen peaches or 

 melons in the open air, and even grapes and plums have to be 

 grown against walls or under glass in order to get enough sunshine 

 to ripen them. The appeal to the stomach is deeper seated than 

 the aesthetic sense and the English are blessed with a sturdy interest 

 in the simple joys of eating. The first step they took to get fruit 

 was to build high walls to keep out thieves. Then they found out 

 that better fruit could be grown against these walls than in the 



open. And, when some genius discovered that the finest fruit of 



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