H. G. Hastings Co., Seedsmen, Atlanta, Georgia 
3 
The Garden Useful 
When you take dinner with a city or suburban friend who has a good home garden, have you noticed that 
you are told, with much pride, that “this lettuce” or corn, or “these tomatoes came fresh from our garden”? 
These healthful, satisfactory dinners, so largely made up of crisp, tender, finely flavored vegetables that 
no market can furnish, are a revelation to those who have no real garden. 
They are wholesome and as such they go a long ways toward the preservation of health of the family as 
well as making an enormous hole in the store or market bill during the garden season. 
Looked at from the viewpoint of either pleasure, health or money saving, the home garden is an essential. 
Practically all of us here in the South eat too much meat, and especially so in summer. While we are not 
vegetarians in the usual acceptance of the word, yet we believe that the use of fresh, tender vegetables should 
have a larger place in our diet than it does. 
With a right proportion of vegetables on our tables we can all go a long ways towards getting rid of the 
sluggishness and lack of energy that lays hold on most of us during the warmer months. 
We have no grudge against doctor or druggist, yet we do know that if our people had on their tables an 
abundance of vegetable food during the warm months a large part of doctor’s or druggist’s bill would be 
absent. 
There's lots of talk these days, and rightfully so, as to the need of efficiency in our lives, and no man or 
woman, boy or girl, can be at their best in business, society or school with a clogged up system due to a lack of 
the corrective power of the more common vegetables which Nature provides for just such purpose. 
In and around Atlanta and suburbs are tens of thousands of unused back yards and side yards absolutely 
wasted and frequently unsightly that could be and should be put into good home gardens for health's sake, 
for looks’ sake and last, but not least, money’s sake, for no one who has not tried it in earnest can realize the 
money-saving power of a good home garden when it comes to cutting down store bills. 
At a little cost or effort for a thorough breaking of the ground, a little fertilizer either in the shape of ma¬ 
nure or the commercial brands, and a few seeds and vegetable plants put in at proper time during spring and 
summer will bring you greater returns on the investment than the promises of the wildest “get-rich-quick- 
scheme” ever offered to the public. 
You may not realize this value. Just keep account for a few days of what your vegetables cost (including 
the canned ones) and you will quickly realize the saving to be made when there is a garden full at hand 
ready for use. 
The garden is an essential part of the right kind of a home and there are comparatively few of us here in 
the Atlanta section so many years removed from country or small town but what we can well remember the 
important part played by the home garden in the lives of our parents or grandparents. 
Here in the city we are apt to drift away from the garden idea and feel that the city and a garden should 
be strangers. 
This is a real mistake, for in Atlanta and other cities there are first class gardens, just as good as can be 
found on any farm. These gardens are usually found in that back yard, so generally unused. A good garden 
can be yours in 1916 with little trouble and little expense. 
There are few homes in the Atlanta section where there is not “yard room" for a real “garden useful 
every season. A year ago when almost every one was more or less "blue” over the financial situation and 
thousands were out of employment there was a revival of the “garden useful" such as Atlanta has not seen 
in years. 
As a result thousands pulled through that could not otherwise have done so, many of them with bettei 
table and health than they had had in years. 
No family is too poor to have a gardeu, no one so wealthy but what the garden can furnish an unsurpassed 
quality of food and better health. 
The latter part of March, all of April and May is real spring garden making time in the Atlanta section. 
A word of caution just here and that is that generally folks pay too little attention to the quality of seeds 
they plant. It’s the easiest thing in the world to plant the first seeds that come to hand. 
All seeds are not good seeds by any means, and it’s no little disappointment to find, when too late, that the 
seeds you planted were not right. You cannot be too careful in seed buying no matter whether the gaiden 
be large or small. 
For garden satisfaction and profit, however, the seed you plant must be right. You can t affoid to take 
chances when it comes to seeds. 
You take no chances with seeds from Hastings’. They are dependable in every respect and from them 
will come a garden of which you may well be proud. 
