4 Home Vegetable Gardening 



reason, then, is this : while there are garden books 

 in plenty, most of them pay more attention to the 

 "content" than to the form in which it is laid before 

 the prospective gardener. The material is often 

 presented as an accumulation of detail, instead of by 

 a systematic and constructive plan which will take 

 the reader step by step through the work to be done, 

 and make clear constantly both the principles and 

 the practice of garden making and management, 

 and at the same time avoid every digression un- 

 necessary from the practical point of view. Other 

 books again, are either so elementary as to be of 

 little use where gardening is done without gloves, 

 or too elaborate, however accurate and worthy in 

 other respects, for an every-day working manual. 

 The author feels, therefore, that there is a distinct 

 field for the present book. 



And, while I still have the reader by the "intro- 

 duction" buttonhole, I want to make a suggestion 

 or two about using a book like this. Do not, on 

 the one hand, read it through and then put it away 

 with the dictionary and the family Bible, and trust 

 to memory for the instruction it may give; do not, 

 on the other hand, wait until you think it is time to 

 plant a thing, and then go and look it up. For in- 

 stance, do not, about the middle of May, begin in- 

 vestigating how many onion seeds to put in a hill; 

 you will find out that they should have been put in, 



