soil with me in Berkshire, and as it grows both at Newport and 
BrookHne it should be obtainable in America. 
Yours faithfully, 
Alice Martineau, 
Broom Hall, Sunningdale, Berkshire, England. 
As a new member and as a professional, the Editor of the Bulletin 
has very considerately given me space to say a few words to the 
Garden Club of America. 
What a joy it is to turn again with clear consciences to the pleas- 
ures of the great outdoors. I say this guardedly, with the demoraliza- 
tion of War Conditions still hanging over us — the lack of trained 
gardeners, the high cost of labor and the scarcity of plant material, 
but, if we are forward looking, as all good gardeners are, we will over- 
look these immediate discouragements in the path of our ultimate 
achievements. 
Certainly few individual members of the Garden Club of 
America or individual Clubs could be accused of lack of appreciation 
of gardens and especially of flowers, and you are by your interest 
rendering fine service and by so doing raising the standard of horti- 
culture. The old rule of supply and demand works unerringly, and if 
you insist (as the English do) , in having the best varieties of plants 
for your gardens, you will get them. It will then become worth while 
for the nurserymen to offer stock for which there is real and permanent 
demand. They may begin by growing the simple things themselves, 
or if this is economically impossible, insist on raising the embargo on 
importation, so wdth the united demand of garden lovers and plant 
growers Quarantine No. 37 may before long disappear into the Umbo 
reserved for mistaken poHtical measures. 
All your efforts for better flower growing are well worth while, 
but beyond the high wall of your gardens proper, lies a wide field 
that is in need of just such interest and good work as you have been 
doing within. 
Many Garden Club members are so keen about flowers and have 
so concentrated upon them that they do not realize they are but a 
part of all the fine plant material we have to draw from. Few also 
realize the wonderful variety of our native trees and shrubs, unsur- 
passed by any country in the World. As we go to Europe for our 
flower novelties so Europe comes to us for the interest and variety 
and beauty of our native plants. 
Flowers, exquisite as they are, are but finishing touches to our 
pictures, we must first consider the framework and learn to use our 
materials outdoors as we would indoors, before beginning the furnish- 
ing of a house. To do this we want to develop our senses of ob- 
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