68 
HOUSE & GARDEN 
MARBLE MANTELS 
BENCHES, CONSOLES 
ETC. 
S. KLABER & CO. 
126 W. 34th ST., N.Y. 
Established 1849 
Give Your Home 
An Inviting Approach 
First impressions last long¬ 
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pleasing that every one 
will remark its beauty, by 
planting 
Ellwanger & Barry 
Choice Shrubs and Hardy Plants 
With them you have a profu¬ 
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a wealth of foliage. You can 
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adorn barren places, open at¬ 
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sightly features, and lend beau¬ 
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Ellwanger & Barry Shrubs and 
Plants succeed in any good 
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and grow larger and bloom 
more profusely each season. 
American nursery business is 
entwined with the name of Ell¬ 
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this has been the most com¬ 
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industry, the success built upon 
integrity. Ask the best au¬ 
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Send for 76th Annual Catalog 
It’s a standard plant¬ 
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handbook and 
manual con¬ 
taining valuable 
cultural d i r e c- 
tions, indispens¬ 
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Sent free on re¬ 
quest. 
Ellwanger & Barry 
MT. HOPE NURSERIES 
BOX 204 ROCHESTER. N.Y. 
The Garden Club for the Small Town 
(Continued from page 11) 
the editor of a New York periodical 
for women. Access to libraries 
should not make the getting up of 
such a program over-trying, however. 
If, for instance, an outline of the his¬ 
tory of the art of gardening should 
be desired for winter deliberations 
(and let me here assert my Arm be¬ 
lief that nothing could be better for 
us all as individual gardeners) such 
an outline may be found in Volumes 
II and III, 1889 and 1890, of Garden 
and Forest, and from no less a pen 
than that of Mrs. Schuyler Van 
Rensselaer. 
Papers by members may seem a 
bugbear in a club’s beginnings. Help 
this matter by providing material to 
be read by different ones, and to ac¬ 
cumulate such material consult the 
files of the delightful and lamented 
paper, Garden and Forest ; look back 
at j'our old copies of House and 
Garden for articles by experts. Cul¬ 
tural and horticultural advice ten or 
fifteen or forty years old for the 
same climate is in many respects as 
good to-day as when freshly written. 
Here is a list of suggested topics 
for papers, gathered from various 
sources, with one or two original 
suggestions whose value I admit is 
debatable: 
Spring Planting or Fall Planting, 
Which? 
The Twelve Best Seed Catalogues 
Now Current. 
The Question of the Fence. 
Other People’s Gardens. 
The Newer Varieties of Vege¬ 
tables. 
The New Chinese Shrubs. 
A Garden of Irises. 
A Green Garden. 
Roses and Rose Culture. 
Shrubs and Trees to Attract Birds. 
A Joseph’s ’Coat Garden. 
The Artistic Use of So-called Bed¬ 
ding-out Plants. 
Structural Green in the Garden. 
Is the Pergola an American Neces¬ 
sity? 
Garden Design. 
The Need of a Plan for the Small 
City or Suburban Lot. 
The Spring Garden. 
An occasional lecture by one thor¬ 
oughly versed in some special subject 
connected with the garden is a won¬ 
derful fillip to interest in meetings. 
In our club, where the dues are so 
small, we cannot engage speakers. 
But should an authority on gardening 
happen to be in the town, we seize 
upon him or her and demand a few 
crumbs of garden wisdom as our 
right. But—not too many lectures, or 
individual participation lags. Once or 
twice a season experience meetings 
are well. Call the roll, asking each 
member beforehand to use three min¬ 
utes in describing her greatest suc¬ 
cess or most depressing failure during 
the past season. The severest garden 
club atmosphere under this treatment 
warms and glows. 
Too many lectures, I may repeat, 
hurt rather than help. Too much in¬ 
tensive work is apt to grow dull. To 
strike the delicate balance is the 
needed thing. Above all to get many 
members actively to work—this is the 
secret of success in any organization 
of any kind. 
Club Activities 
The very lifeblood of any meeting 
is free and intelligent discussion, and 
this is always present in the garden 
club of our town. Always the hidden 
gifts of knowledge and of expression 
which come to light prove a delight¬ 
ful thing. Small concerted move¬ 
ments on the part of the club are 
common. For example, the receiving 
vault in our cemetery needed a hang¬ 
ing of green: the garden club 
bought a dozen good creepers of un¬ 
usual character —Euonymous radicans 
(var. vegetus), and Amp'elopsis lowii, 
to be explicit, and thus filled this 
small public want. A bride in a new 
house with ungarnished grounds re¬ 
ceives a visit from a large committee 
of the club, each of whom brings her 
quota of shrub and plant from her 
own store. Seeds and plants are con¬ 
stantly exchanged between members. 
But the true beauty of this club is 
its democracy. Every woman is wel¬ 
come to the house in which the meet¬ 
ing chances to be held. I quite re¬ 
alize that this is possible or practi¬ 
cable only in the smaller community; 
but one cannot but dream of the time 
when it will be common in the large. 
In some garden clubs an extra of¬ 
ficer is elected to manage the ex¬ 
changing of seeds and plants between 
members. This is sometimes effected 
by the handing in of cards with names 
of things wanted and of cards with 
names of things superfluous. One 
person can thus readily rectify mat¬ 
ters to the satisfaction of all. I shall 
never forget the pretty sight at the 
meeting of a certain adorable garden 
club, where heaps of pink-wrapped 
bundles of the roots of hardy pale- 
yellow chrysanthemums were free for 
all to take home as many as they 
liked! For most of us things multi¬ 
ply so quickly. We should remember 
that Achilles ptarmica, the Pearl, for 
instance, is actually listed in many 
catalogues as fifteen cents, and that 
there are many aspiring if less well 
posted gardeners to whom the greedy 
thing is worth that sum! 
Club Groups 
In the garden club of Alma we have 
sixteen groups of women, each group 
charged with the business of grow¬ 
ing the best flowers from seed. The 
groups at present are as follows: 
Sweet William, zinnia, gladiolus, iris, 
Columbine, poppy, Shasta daisy, 
geranium, dahlia, larkspur, stock, 
and others whose names may readily 
occur to the reader. These groups 
meet at their own convenience, buy 
their seeds, plant and take care of 
the trial bed allotted to them. 
A year ago a fine formal garden, 
whose owner was away, was lent us 
by this absent friend to use by our 
groups as a trial garden. The vari¬ 
ous beds of the garden were ideal bits 
of ground for this practice, and the 
place itself by August was a picture 
of beauty. We tried not to use it 
as a mere target to throw flowers at, 
but to keep the unities a little in mind. 
On a day in May the large borrowed 
garden was an interesting sight with 
groups of people actively engaged in 
cultivating, planting and sowing every 
bed. And in September a yet more 
interesting picture was there, for the 
flowers had done marvelously well, 
and squares of zinnia, dahlia, petunia, 
aster, stock, verbena and gladiolus 
in a setting of well-kept turf made 
a pretty spectacle. It would be well 
if such generosity could be oftener 
shown in the lending of the unused 
garden. However, if a garden is not 
at hand, a vacant lot might be se¬ 
cured. Such trial grounds are in¬ 
valuable, both for the education and 
pleasure which they give to members 
of a garden club, and as objects of 
public interest, comment and example. 
An annual Gladiolus Show on very 
simple lines is arranged for August. 
This, by the way, I believe to be the 
simplest, most effective small flower 
(Continued on page 70) 
Garden Furniture 
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THE GARDEN GATEWAY 
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Sunken Path House Bench House 
Make Your Garden 
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BE FIRST! 
If your heart is in garden¬ 
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first than last. 
You know how delicious 
are your own first vege¬ 
tables; how delightful the 
first flowers and, if you grow 
things to sell, how profitable! 
Equip your garden with 
one or more hot-beds, or cold 
frames or a small ready-to- 
use greenhouse covered with 
Sunlight Double 
Glazed Sashes 
They are complete in 
themselves and cheaper than 
cheap sash. The dry air be¬ 
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the cost and labor thus saved! 
The Sunlight is the Standard 
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It lasts a lifetime. 
Immediate shipment is made and 
within ten days or less you can have 
a Sunlight hot-bed or cold frame or 
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Get our free Catalogue. You need 
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SUNLIGHT DOUBLE 
GLASS SASH CO. 
944 E. BROADWAY 
LOUISVILLE, KY. 
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