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GARDENERS' CHRONICLE 
OF AMERICA 
Devoted to the Science of Floriculture and Horticulture 
I Vol. XXI 
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MARCH, 1917 
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No. 3. I 
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Things and Thoughts of the Garden 
By "The Onlooker" 
ANEW, live enthusiasm for gardening is in the air. 
It's in my head for sure ; but indeed one feels it 
all about. Perhaps it is the effort of us poor 
folks to do something more to "keep the pot boiling." 
The high cost of food stuffs, vegetables particularly, has 
turned people's minds seriously to questions of supply. 
There's the land, why not make it grow a crop? Never 
before, probably, have prices of vegetables been quoted 
so often nor so prominently by all the big daily news- 
papers. Cartoons have filled the sheets, at least those I see 
most of, to emphasize the costliness of potatoes, onions, 
turnips and cabbages. No longer do we buy a big cabbage 
and strip it half down, choosing only the best and finest 
part. We buy by weight ! A reporter in Chicago paid his 
taxicab fare with a handful of potatoes the other day. The 
man whose breath smelt of onions was looked up to as a 
man of wealth. Diamonds were as nothing in comparison 
with the once despised onion and the "noble tubes.'' And 
so went the tale. The best cartoon was one showing a 
poor woman with a child by her side, the mother carry- 
ing an empty market basket on her arm and both were 
gazing with extreme wistfulness at a greengrocer's 
window. The inscription to the picture was good : 
"Food for Thought." Yes, only to think nliout — too 
costly too buy. 
Some of the seedsmen have been prescient. Did 
not many readers see Henderson's remarkable page ad- 
vertisements in the most prominent part of the Sunday 
edition of the New York Times? The appeal was all to 
make the most of the garden this year. Prices of food 
won't go down much just yet. There's trouble all around 
the horizon. War stalks abroad ; the war god has laid 
his clutch on peace-loving America. Well, the future lies 
in the lap of the gods. I'm going to sow chard, onions, 
beets, tomatoes ct cetera. Flowers we'll have too ; but 
the food that satisfieth the inner man must be looked to 
with greater care in the spring and summer of 1917 than 
for quite a while before. At Boston the authorities have 
engaged a man to give his time and experience to teach 
and direct people to do gardening properly, economically 
and successfully. At Chicago an organization has under- 
taken°a similar service. We are going at it in the U. S. A. 
the same as the\- arc in the British Isles, France, Ger- 
many and Holland. 
Will this lead to a permanent love and knowledge of 
gardening and land cultivation? Will the people get a 
more intelligent appreciation of gardens and the humble 
products of the soil? Never has the food question been 
so discussed in the history of the world as it is today. 
This is truer of Europe than of America, but is not ex- 
aggerated either, as regards our own land. Shipping is 
a great industry, but if never a ship sailed the people 
could live if the soil and the seed and the season were 
guaranteed. Mining and engineering are stupendous 
factors in the life of the nation, but if they failed us we 
could still Inirrow into the soil and keep warm in winter, 
even as the Eskimos do. It is possible that man could 
clothe himself in skins if wearing ceased. But if the land 
failed to bring forth food man would die. Am I right? 
The seed trade has a trump card in hand all the while. 
It should show this card a bit more freely. Sweet are the 
uses of adversity to the seed advertiser. 
But even if all were humming brightly ; if prosperity 
never failed ; if big wages and full time were the portion 
of all who work, still the seed, nursery and florist trades 
have inducements to offer and arguments for gardening. 
In the CiiRONici.E and in these "Thoughts of the Garden" 
I have often written of the joys, the relaxation, the 
recreation, the study and lessons that gardening brings. 
When we were in our twenties we ran races to keep our 
joints exercised. We hadn't much thought, perhaps, for 
"messing around in a yard." We marry, we are kept at 
home. Mother and the children expect us. What better 
than to make a happy with-drawing room for them? 
That is the original meaning of the word "drawing- 
room,'' anyway. After dinner the men used to smoke 
and — yes, drink. The ladies withdrew ; the with-drawing 
room was theirs. Why not make of the garden, or the 
part immediately surrounding the dwelling, a with- 
drawing room? The prettiest and most loved house I 
have had had French windows opening from the morning 
room, which was a sunny room all day long, with win- 
dows facing south and west, and we used to open these 
French doors and step out upon a raised ample concrete 
platform from wdiich we stepped to a terrace path. 
English ivy formed a network covering over a trellised 
rail or fence on the west side ; a close-clipped little hedge 
of bright Golden Privet grew along the south edge of 
the aforesaid platform (or floor), and a bed of splendidly 
vigorous roses divided the terrace path from the lawn. 
To the left of the lawn we had fruit trees and a winding 
border of hardy flowers : to the right, a shrubbery of very 
choice Rhododendrons, Brooms, Barberries, Viburnums, 
Heaths and other flowering shrubs, as well as dwarf ever- 
greens, with standard apple trees behind. Believe me, it 
was a show garden. People passing used to stand and 
gaze at our collection of early Daffodils, Squills, Crocuses 
87 
