The great news of these summer days gives promise of a happier 
summer next year, perhaps not a peaceful summer but one which may 
be a season of preparation for peace. So remember that your garden 
cannot be resurrected all in a minute and furbish it up a httle in the 
autumn that is near in hopeful anticipation of happiness, beauty and 
rest in a time that up to now has seemed very remote. 
Most of us have had Httle time for garden work or enjoyment this 
year and little courage to plan for next. Labor shortage, foot shortage, 
time shortage have loomed ominously. We knew that our gardens 
and our lives would bloom again with victory but we could not be too 
confident when that victory would come. We must not be over- 
confident now but surely next summer must be the last when beauty 
is entirely subordinated to usefulness , and that means just one more year 
to guard the flowers that we have, just one more year of giving them 
as little care as possible, just one more year of planning what best 
can be abandoned. And to-day we can begin to think, "I am glad I 
did not let the weeds overgrow that border." "No matter how Httle 
labor we have I shall replant and tend that garden next year that it 
may be very proud and gay in 1920." 
But though our time of blind effort is over and we may begin to 
struggle toward a triumphant end there is still more work for any one 
of us to do than we have ever done before. Last March at the Council 
of Presidents the continuance of the Bulletin during war times was 
discussed. It was decided that as a means of holding the Club together 
it was useful and of some practical value. 
Perhaps it is, but the editor needs reassurance. In the first place 
practicaUy no contributions are forthcoming. Neither are comments 
on the few contributions received and printed. This would seem to 
prove a lack of interest which gives faint hope that our smaU pubHca- 
tion is widely read. In the second place the member clubs are aU 
doing much and good work but after thirty-six commimity war 
gardens have been described semi-annuaUy for two years and canning 
kitchens have been richly commented upon with equal regularity, 
those who delve in the gardens and can in the kitchens become dis- 
interested in any but their own. Farm imits are stiU a stirring subject, 
but has any club written to tell us how prospers their unit? No, not 
one. Not even our own home club that boasts of a part in the only 
American Training Farm for Women. 
So this is the conclusion we have reached and at the risk of seeming 
personal we state it. You want the Bulletin, but you don't want to 
be bothered with it. Again at the risk of seeming personal, we would 
say that the editor is one whose war-work, home charities, com- 
paratively gardenerless gardens and family (this last accounted for 
