Foreword 



with her management of this department of 

 household work. 



Fourth. — The writer believes that a vege- 

 table diet is healthier than one in which meats 

 and other heavy foods predominate. There- 

 fore, on hygienic grounds, he would advise 

 everybody who can do so to have a garden. 



I am well aware that most men do not seem 

 to look upon gardening with much favor. They 

 class it in with other ''puttering" jobs, and 

 are glad to tum it over to the children and the 

 women-folk. Now women, as a general thing, 

 are too busy with their household work to find 

 time to plant, and hoe, and weed, and the boys 

 and girls can hardly be expected to do much 

 in the gardening line without some one to show 

 them what needs doing, and how to do it. This 

 being the case, the garden left wholly to the 

 care of women and children is generally a fail- 

 ure, and because it is so the men of the family 

 declare that ''gardens don't pay." True, stick 

 gardens do not pay. But a garden well cared 

 for — a garden treated as scientifically as the 

 average farmer treats his cornfield or his 

 meadow — will pay, and pay better than any 

 other part of the farm. And this with but 



II 



