XVI 



NECESSITIES AND LUXURIES 

 IN GARDEN BOOKS 



■D IBLIOGRAPHIES are dull things — true, too, 

 -L' of many necessities, and I make no apology, 

 to those who care for gardening, while dwelling 

 for a little on garden books. What would winter 

 be without them? "Summer," as the delightful 

 David Grayson remarks, "is for activities; winter 

 for reading." So it seems to the true gardener! 

 His mental gardening is done while snow is flying, 

 leaving the physical to be carried out as twigs. 

 begin to bud and grass to green again. 



The very watchword of an American gardener's 

 winter — the slogan, I might almost call it — should 

 be, "Look it up in Bailey." As the Irish judge 

 remarked, "I yield to no one in my ignorance of 

 scientific horticulture," therefore there would be 

 no sense in my trying to garden without Bailey's 

 Encyclopedia at my elbow. The six volumes 

 are indispensable, filled with wonderful horticul- 

 tural learning, yet not too technical for the begin- 



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