I have always hoped that some day I would write a 

 preface, or an introduction or a prelude, or what- 

 L^fcl ^^^^ choose to call it, to a book on garden- 



jIp Ever since I was introduced to horticulture, in 



my almost protoplasmic days, and taught to lisp the achieve- 

 ments of "Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary" I have loved 

 flowers. I saw gardens in dreams but was, perforce, content 

 to take their realization from the blooming windows of the 

 florists' shop and think, vaguely, that I would like to be out 

 somewhere in the bright, warm sunshine, turning over the 

 cool dark earth in a scented garden, but I stopped there. 

 I stopped there until along came a gentle apostle of the 

 green and flowering things and opened my eyes to the won- 

 derful possibilities of gardening. 



At first all garden work seems so difficult, so complicated, 

 but after all, as the days go by and you have succeeded with 

 "the little things" and perhaps have had some successes 

 with big things, and as garden knowledge and garden 

 understanding comes to you, ambition will be created by 

 even your smallest successes, enthusing you on to big things. 



We are, by nature, garden lovers, and the garden lover of 

 today is not the garden lover of yesterday — quite content to 

 occasionally admiringly walk through her garden. Today, 

 the garden lover loves to work in her garden and is evolv- 

 ing new ideas and new methods which are so helpful to 

 other amateurs. 



II 



