APPENDIX 



pursuit that I do not exaggerate when I say that there has 

 been a suspicion of midsummer madness in the way in which 

 garden clubs have been springing up month by month in 

 the years just past. A deep, persistent, and growing inter- 

 est in gardening seems to have suddenly crystallized in this 

 charming and most practical fashion, with the result that 

 sixteen or more of these organizations, varying in size and 

 form, are now in existence. Offshoots of these clubs seem 

 to be multiplying as rapidly as bulblets from a good gladiolus 

 in a fair season. 



It is not the fault of the garden clubs that they have a 

 distinctly social side. Gardening at its highest can best be 

 carried on by men and women of high intelligence, taste, ex- 

 perience, and — alas that it must be said ! — the wherewithal. 

 With the true gardener this money question, however, is the 

 last, least requisite, for who that deeply loves a garden 

 does not know that qualities most rare and fine shine out 

 oftenest through the flowers of small and simple gardens? 

 It is, I have sometimes compassionately thought, more diffi- 

 cult for a richer man to achieve his heart's desire in garden- 

 ing than for a poorer one. Many are the conventional ob- 

 stacles to gardening raised in the path of the owners of great 

 gardens. 



The Garden Club of Philadelphia was, I believe, the first 

 of its kind in this country. It is now twelve years of age. 

 It has, in these twelve years, had no change in the offices 

 of president and secretary; and it has been the active agent 

 in the organization of many other clubs of a like nature. 

 This society has perhaps fifty members. It meets weekly 

 from the middle of April to the first of July; twice in Sep- 

 tember, and has besides three winter meetings; all "for plea- 

 sure and profit." A paper is read at each meeting on a sea- 



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