CHAPTER I 

 OUR GRANDMOTHER'S GARDENS 



IN the North, most of them were small; not too 

 much labor for her own hands, aided in the dig- 

 ging and the heavier work by the man of the 

 family, or lacking him, by some one hired as occasion 

 demanded; both town and village gardens that owed 

 their being to the housewife, had her impress upon 

 them, and yielded not alone flowers and beauty, but 

 medicinal herbs and vegetables. 



They seem to have had " green fingers," these 

 grandmothers, to belong to those of whom it is said 

 that a dry stick will take root, let them but plant it, and 

 after whose footsteps flowers spring up, as though they 

 were princesses of fairy-land. All of us, of course, were 

 not so fortunate as to have owned these plant-wise an- 

 cestors, skilful in garden ways, wise and gracious 

 women, creating in the wilderness little places of delight. 

 Nevertheless, there were many of them, as can be seen 

 throughout New England, wherever the old houses 

 remain. The gardens they made were not often the 

 result of fixed plans or formal designs, but began close 



2 I 



