:^8 CULTIVATION 
Devote a section of the note book to questions that 
arise while actually at work in the garden. Answer 
these questions yourself as far as possible by thinking 
about your plants, by reading catalogs and garden 
magazines and books. Form a local dahlia society, or 
join the nearest one; take your note book to the meet- 
ings; contribute your first-hand information, and ask 
your questions. Buy a few of the many excellent books 
upon gardening. Subscribe, of course, and without fail, 
to at least two garden magazines, and carefully file 
them. They furnish a liberal education in horticulture 
in the course of time. The publishers sometimes print 
a complete index annually. Probably quite as useful 
would be making a card index of what is of particular 
value and interest to your personal garden plans. In 
this index should be entered magazine articles, with 
date including the year, page, number of illustrations; 
chapters in books that you can consult, but do not buy; 
reference to your miscellaneous clippings, that can be 
filed by subjects in envelopes, or better still in the ordi- 
nary and very convenient commercial letter file. The 
writer has taken, at one time, a dozen farm, garden, and 
poultry periodicals, and never failed to obtain from each, 
in actual, practical, money value a great deal more than 
the subscription cost. Two publications he recommends 
unreservedly: The Garden Magazine, Doubleday 
Page and Go., Garden Gity, L.I., N.Y., $3.00 a year; 
The Flower Grower, Madison Cooper, publisher, Cal- 
