THE TURN OF THE ROAD 
L IKE a breath of spring on a March day comes a letter to day 
from a man who has gone back to the land. 
“I’m dead broke, but 1 own a farm. I’d rather be broke and 
own a farm, than not be broke and not own a farm. 
“I have been camping in the orchard in a tent and having the 
most glorious time. I have spent weeks under an old apple tree 
with a saw and a pruning knife, looking for that ‘ideal’ that 
House and Garden says is the requisite for a successful trimmer 
and pruner. Bang the editor’s head! There isn't any ideal! He 
is just talkin’ hot air. Send him up to me and I'll pound his head 
and then show him deer that watch me bathe in the morning, a 
mother partridge shooing her brood from under my feet, the 
scarlet tanager that greets me from a nearby tree, the baby birds 
that swing in nests in every other apple tree. I'll show him the 
miniature brooks and the valleys and the hills of this farm. I’ll 
let him look at a landscape that cannot be beaten. All these 
things are worth more than ‘ideals’ anyhow. Why, I don’t be¬ 
lieve the editor would know an ideal if he met one walking up 
town.” 
Probably not, but if we wanted to find one in a hurry, we would 
take the first train for that farm in the glorious old hills of 
Vermont. 
It is amazing, the widespread extent of this desire to get out of 
the wearing struggle of city life back to a way of living that 
agrees so infinitely better with our calm reason. No, it is not amaz¬ 
ing, on second thought, for it is such a perfectly natural reaction 
from the life we have gradually been speeding up to. Looking 
at the movement—for it is strong enough to warrant that name— 
in an absolutely disinterested way, it betrays the fact that it is a re¬ 
action rather than a logical forward development, in that it is mak¬ 
ing itself felt almost exclusively about the greater cities. That is 
to say, there is no reason to believe that we as a people are going 
to become more of a farming people than we now are. There is 
too much restlessness, too much nervous energy leavening the 
mass for that. The distinctly American trait of an abiding lust 
for power, for influence, for the acquisition of wealth, is too 
strong to be swept aside by the less blatant attractions of a more 
contemplative mode of living. All of which is not going to dis¬ 
turb for one moment the serene joy of the man who has decided 
to make the break and get back to the soil. What does he care 
about the stock market, the subway problem or the latest restric¬ 
tions on the building of tenement houses? Other problems are 
his-—the selection of seed corn that will produce a few more ker¬ 
nels to the ear, the diverting of that spring on yonder hillside to 
feed a new irrigation system, the oiling of that shotgun up on the 
wall pegs, in preparation for a day after quail. Life with him 
flows as a slower stream and the cup he quaffs from it is a deeper 
one. Probably he is never going to accumulate a “fortune,” in 
the accepted meaning of that most elastic term, but the land is 
going to give him enough and to spare in return for his labor, 
and his life will be really worth living. 
THE POOR MAN’S GARDEN 
A N editorial in the New York Sun recently complained bitterly 
that the landscape gardener, in spite of the widespread in¬ 
terest in this work, still seems to be only a luxury for the posses¬ 
sors of great country estates. The point was made that the poor 
man or the man of moderate means had no such expert to aid him 
in the task of laying out the garden in accordance with the best 
ideas along these lines. 
In all humility, we venture to say that this is precisely what 
House and Garden is trying to do, just as it is trying to show 
the man of moderate means what is best in architecture and in¬ 
terior decoration, without necessitating too great a cost. 
The phenomenon that the Sun complains of is not in any sense 
restricted to landscape architecture, or in the more humble term 
— gardening. The man who has three to five thousand dollars to 
spend upon his home, faces the same problem—that of building 
well and beautifully within his means. In many cases he feels 
that the services of an architect would add expense without justi¬ 
fication, failing to realize the indisputable fact that the few hun¬ 
dred dollars he would pay for the architect’s services would be 
saved twice over in securing proper construction and the effective 
use of inexpensive materials. 
Unfortunately these small problems are not attractive to the 
architect. His expenses in drawings, writing specifications and 
supervising the erection of a house costing $5,000 are practically 
identical with his expenses in performing the same services in 
the case of a house costing $10,000, yet his reward in the second 
case is double that of the first. This of course is due to the 
existing system of architects’ charges being based upon the per¬ 
centage of the total cost of the building. The system is not ideal, 
but the experience of many years has shown that it is the most 
practical working system thus far devised. Of late years archi¬ 
tects have expressed their recognition of the greater cost of time 
and labor involved in a small house by increasing the percentage 
rate below $10,000 or $7,500. This is only fair, and the results 
from a practical as well as an esthetic viewpoint are well worth 
this higher fee. 
The case is identical with the gardening and landscape side. 
People who have not thought deeply in the matter are far too apt 
to feel that they can readily dispense with the services of the 
skilled landscape gardener, when the work is not extensive in its 
scope. Then too, on the face of things the man is apt to think 
his own knowledge concerning planting is sufficient for all prac¬ 
tical purposes on a small place. The only solution of the problem 
that we can think of is the same for both cases—that the prospec¬ 
tive maker of a home investigate the matter fully enough to 
satisfy himself that the services of both an architect and a land¬ 
scape gardener are not only advisable, but true economy, and that 
he be willing therefore to pay the price. 
CHEAP SEEDS 
I N a nearby grocery store there is a small tray divided into per¬ 
haps twenty compartments, each containing packets of seeds 
lithographed in gay colors. On the under side of the lid, which 
is hinged and held at a convenient angle with chains, is an inspir¬ 
ing garden scene and the legend, “We can highly recommend 
these seeds.” To our certain knowledge that tray and most of its 
contents has been in that store for three years, brought forth each 
spring into a prominent position to tempt amateur gardeners. 
The packets of peas, beans, lettuce, and so on, bear no seedman’s 
name — a fact that mutely testifies to his business sagacity, for 
when seeds fail to sprout the amateur gardener has an unerring 
memory regarding the name the packet bore. When one con¬ 
siders for a moment the relative values of the seed and the labor* 
that go into the making of a garden — not alone the labor of 
making ready the soil and planting, but the season’s work in cul¬ 
tivation, transplanting and fertilizing — it would appear that the 
very best seed obtainable is none too good on which to base the 
hazard. If we were casting about for the most common causes 
of failure in gardening, one of the first to hand would be cheap 
seeds. 
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