THE BOOK OF THE COTTAGE GARDEN 



CHAPTER I 



THE COTTAGE GARDEN 



In writing a book on the cottage garden, one is conscious 

 that the subject is of considerable difficulty. To many, 

 this statement will appear absurd ; and the many will be 

 right or wrong in exact accordance with the views they 

 hold upon the ideals and aims of modern garden craft. 

 If the making of gardens is regarded as a material 

 accomplishment, having for its purpose the service of 

 purely utilitarian ends, then is the cottage garden the 

 simplest and least elaborate expression of a diverse and 

 complicated science. The humble plots of land attached 

 to cottage dwellings are but patches of practice ground 

 where the novice may try his hand at raising a few 

 flowers and vegetables, assured that failure will entail 

 no serious consequences, no waste of money, no lasting 

 inconvenience. 



The growing of produce for the table, the culture 

 of flowers so that their blossoms may be gathered to 

 brighten dingy rooms, the providing of lawns for tennis 

 and croquet, the laying out of ornamental grounds that 

 we may live amid trim, orderly surroundings — are these, 

 then, the considerations that from time immemorial have 

 quickened in the minds of men and women of refined 

 instincts the love and need of a garden ? If so, it means 

 that our gardens are not gardens at all, but merely 



