INTRODUCTION 



^E all have our dream gardens in which stretches of 

 smooth lawns appear, hedges of sweet smelling shrubs 

 Uke Brier Roses, Lavender, Rosemary, or of neat leaved 

 Box, such as one sees at the old home of George Wash- 

 ington at Mt. Vernon. We have our scenes of Rose beds 

 encircled by grass or sand-covered paths, with a httle foun- 

 tain and bird bath nearby, a cozy arbor or rest-house off to one side, 

 borders filled opulently with a variety^ of old-time hardy flowers, 

 fragrant with memories of other days. Here and there a fruit tree 

 stands laden with the promise of luscious fruits, and all around is the 

 busy hum of insect life, with the flutter of birds and butterflies, and 

 the throbbing of a hundred things of the great storehouse of Nature, 

 that make a garden more than a dreamland, but certainly a place of 

 great, refreshing rest, "recuperation, peace, happy thoughts. It is 

 the place to commune with friends, either in bodily presence or in 

 books. It is a place in which to plan, to read, to rest, to work, to 

 play. Back of all there is the utilitarian kitchen garden, the drying 

 yard, the chicken run, the place for the household pets, the children's 

 swing and sand heap, and the other happy features and adjuncts that 

 make the house and garden our home. 



We believe that one chief reason for the paucity of good and 

 bright gardens is the lack of knowing how to set about making them. 

 Geu-dening is a very large subject. It has formed the study and 

 recreation of the leisure moments of many eminent men from the time 

 of Solomon, Homer, Aristotle, Plato and others of the ancients, to 

 Erasmus and Bacon of the Renaissance, Evelyn of the seventeenth 

 century, to the more modem notabiUties, as Pope, Walpole, Gowper, 

 Goethe, Gobbett, our own Nathaniel Hawthorne and Thoreau, with 

 many, many others. The amateur gardener is therefore in excellent 

 company of the present, as well as of all past times. Gardening is 

 pleasurable, healthful, intellectual. 



We should not forget the purely economical side of the matter 

 that has been dwelt upon in the pubUshers' foreword. But this 

 Garden Guide is not intended exactly to be a mentor on making 

 money or saving inoney. You are willing to pay for your household 

 gods, embellishments, your automobile, your camera and sporting 

 outfits, your concerts auid theatres. Expect to pay, therefore,' for your 

 geirdening-; yet we can assure the amateur that well-considered expen- 

 diture on the garden more than pays for itself. You can have delicious 

 edible Asparagus on your table day in, day out for weeks in the early 



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