4 MANUAL OF GARDENING 
be that part of the personal or home premises devoted to orna- 
ment, and to the growing of vegetables and fruits. The garden, 
therefore, is an ill-defined demesne; but the reader must not 
make the mistake of defining it by dimensions, for one may 
have a garden in a flower-pot or on a thousand acres. In 
other words, this book declares that every bit of land that is 
not used for buildings, walks, drives, and fences, should be 
planted. What we shall plant — whether sward, lilacs, 
thistles, cabbages, pears, chrysanthemums, or tomatoes — we 
shall talk about as we proceed. 
The only way to keep land perfectly unproductive is to keep 
it moving. The moment the owner lets it alone, the planting 
has begun. In my own garden, this first planting is of pigweeds. 
These may be followed, the next year, by ragweeds, then by 
docks and thistles, with here and there a start of clover and 
grass; and it all ends in June-grass and dandelions. 
Nature does not allow the land to remain bare and idle. 
Even the banks where plaster and lath were dumped two or 
three years ago are now luxuriant with burdocks and sweet 
clover; and yet persons who pass those dumps every day say 
that they can grow nothing in their own yard because the soil 
is so poor! Yet I venture that those same persons furnish 
most of the pigweed seed that I use on my garden. 
The lesson is that there is no soil — where a house would be 
built — so poor that something worth while cannot be grown 
on it. If burdocks will grow, something else will grow; or if 
nothing else will grow, then I prefer burdocks to sand and 
rubbish. 
The burdock is one of the most striking and decorative of 
plants, and a good piece of it against a building or on a rough 
bank is just as useful as many plants that cost money and are dif- 
ficult to grow. I hada good clump of burdock under my study 
window, and it was a great comfort; but the man would persist 
in wanting to cut it down when he mowed the lawn. When I 
