CHAPTER I 

 Introduction 



Ef I had f git rid uv a grees spot onto my karpit or a gar- 

 ding spot onto my farm, i ud tackel the grees spot. 



— Joe Moggason. 



If one really desires to succeed in horticulture, 

 nothing can stop him. The little failures that may 

 appear from time to time with various plants, and in 

 different seasons, always lead to better directed ef- 

 forts, and consequently better success, provided the 

 desire to have a garden is genuine. Supposing some 

 kinds continue to fail even under the best of treat- 

 ment, one is not obliged to give up. There are other 

 varieties in abundance and the right ones are sure 

 to appear if one is persistent. 



What matter if one has not the " rich garden 

 loam," the " southern exposure," and the other 

 factors that writers on horticulture emphasize so 

 often? They are all secondary to the desire to 

 have gardens and orchards. With the desire, one 

 can succeed in spite of their absence. Why, up in 

 Canada I had a garden, a good garden, one whose 

 fruits, flowers, and vegetables paid me well, on a 

 clay soil heavy and sticky enough to make into 

 brick. In Michigan I had another good one on 

 such light sand that I was almost obliged to sit 

 on it to prevent its being blown away when it was 

 dry, which it was most of the time. In the District 

 of Columbia I had one on mud flats pumped up 

 from the bottom of the Potomac river to fill a 

 marsh. This land was so hard that when first 

 plowed the three-horse team turned it up in clods 



