Why You Should Garden 7 



household ledger. The big thing, the salient fea- 

 ture of home gardening is not that we may get our 

 vegetables ten per cent, cheaper, but that we can have 

 them one hundred per cent, better. Even the long- 

 keeping sorts, like squash, potatoes and onions, are 

 very perceptibly more delicious right from the home 

 garden, fresh from the vines or the ground; but 

 when it comes to peas, and corn, and lettuce, — well, 

 there is absolutely nothing to compare with the home 

 garden ones, gathered fresh, in the early slanting 

 sunlight, still gemmed with dew, still crisp and ten- 

 der and juicy, ready to carry every atom of savory 

 quality, without loss, to the dining table. Stale, flat 

 and unprofitable indeed, after these have once been 

 tasted, seem the limp, travel-weary, dusty things 

 that are jounced around to us in the butcher's cart 

 and the grocery wagon. It is not in price alone that 

 home gardening pays. There is another point : the 

 market gardener has to grow the things that give 

 the biggest yield. He has to sacrifice quality to 

 quantity. You do not. One cannot buy Golden Ban- 

 tam corn, or Mignonette lettuce, or Gradus peas in 

 most markets. They are top quality, but they do not 

 fill the market crate enough times to the row to 

 pay the commercial grower. If you cannot afford 

 to keep a professional gardener there is only one 

 way to have the best vegetables — grow your own ! 

 And this brings us to the third, and what may be 



