Pictorial 

 Practical Vegetable Growing. 



Cbapter \ —n KitcD^n 6araen, ana m 

 Wonders it Works, 



The victorious vegetable grower is a person who drinks deeply of the 

 joy of life. 



Artists have their moments of happiness and their moments of 

 despair ; poets look on the world by turns cheerfully and hopelessly ; 

 but the vegetable grower follows a path of perennial pleasure. 



When a man has taken up by turns literature, art, and the drama, 

 and has proved a failure with them all, he usually resorts to 

 gambling, drinking, suicide, or something equally pusillanimous and 

 wasteful. Yet if he took to vegetable culture he would become 

 morally and phj^sically regenerated, and would know wl at it is to 

 feel a completely happy man. 



In a fairly wide experience of the world in general, and of horti- 

 culture in particular, I can truthfully say that I have encountered 

 only one class of people who are thoroughly contented with the world 

 — contented with what they do in it, contented with v/hat they make 

 out of it, and, above all, contented beyond all ordinary contentment 

 with themselves. These are the vegetable growers. How better 

 could perfect happiness be expressed than in what is here said ? 



Let me set down, as nearly as I can recall them, the beautiful 

 lines from an old lyric : — 



Art thou poor, yet liast thou golden slumbers ? 

 Oh ! sweet content ! 

 Art thou rich, yet is thy mind perplexed ? 



Oh ! punishment ! 

 Dost thou laugh, when fools are vexed, 

 To add to golden numbers golden numbers ? 



Oh ! sweet content ! Oh ! sweet content ! 



Now for a paraphrase of it, which I hope that lovers of the poet 

 will forgive :-— 



Art thou sick, and hast thou broken slumbers ? 

 Oh 1 time ill-spent ! 

 Hast thou a barrow and a spade annexed ? 



Oh I wise intent ! 

 Dost thou dig, when fools are vexed 

 To add to golden numbers golden numbers ? 



Oh! sweet content I Oh! sweet content ! 



