THE GARDEN BOOK OF CALIFORNIA 



the business world, more natural and free, more sustaining 

 than the philosophies of any new thought. 



A house does not make a home. Neither does a garden. 

 It's home-building we want, and must have, and it takes 

 thought, and hearts, and a will, for building — both in a ma- 

 terial and a spiritual sense — that will go toward a higher 

 development of the family life — the family ideal. I believe 

 from the bottom of my heart that there is no more powerful 

 factor in the development of character than garden-making, 

 just as I believe that flowers are potent to refine the most 

 degraded and cruel natures, if they are properly used. 



If there are those among my readers who are striving to 

 build up a higher type of home life let me urge them, if they 

 have not already made the effort, to so plan their gardens, 

 be they tiny city plots or great country estates, that every 

 member of the family, from the oldest to the youngest, shall 

 have some definite responsibility and part in the making of 

 the home gardens. The child, boy or girl, who has the 

 garden for his or her gymnasium, or who makes playmates 

 of the butterflies and birds, and reads in the growing things 

 the lessons which nature will teach so much better, so much 

 more simply and easily than will books — such a child will 

 surprise you some day by showing a character that cannot 

 be made in any other environment. There is a cry going up 

 all over the land — this land of a strenuous life: "Our chil- 

 dren have no home life — what can we do to instil in their 

 characters those qualities that go to the making of a noble 

 manhood and womanhood?" 



14] 



