Chapter I 
OUR GRANDMOTHER’S GARDENS 
I N the North, most of them were small; not too 
much labor for her own hands, aided in the dig¬ 
ging and the heavier work by the man of the 
family, or lacking him, by some one hired as occasion 
demanded; both town and village gardens that owed 
their being to the housewife, had her impress upon 
them, and yielded not alone flowers and beauty, but 
medicinal herbs and vegetables. 
They seem to have had “green fingers,” these 
grandmothers, to belong to those of whom it is said 
that a dry stick will take root, let them but plant it, and 
after whose footsteps flowers spring up, as though they 
were princesses of fairy-land. All of us, of course, were 
not so fortunate as to have owned these plant-wise an¬ 
cestors, skilful in garden ways, wise and gracious 
women, creating in the wilderness little places of delight. 
Nevertheless, there were many of them, as can be seen 
throughout New England, wherever the old houses 
remain. The gardens they made were not often the 
result of fixed plans or formal designs, but began close 
