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T HIS is a lay ser¬ 
mon for gardeners. 
I 
THE STREET BEHIND 
It is about The Street 
Behind Yours. Not your street, for, of course, your street 
this summer will be fragrant with all manner of burgeoning 
blossoms. You, who have planned all winter long the gar¬ 
den that is to be, need no sermon on how to make it beau¬ 
tiful. Your planning, your planting, your work will bear 
abundant fruit. But that is not enough. There is the street 
behind yours. Will that, too, blossom this summer? 
Time was when a man could say he was not his brother’s 
gardener. That time has passed. It faded into the limbo 
of bad customs together with the right to throw papers on 
the public highway and the right to ruin the looks of a street 
by erecting a house in bad taste. 
The street belongs to every man who lives in the town. 
The appearance of every street depends upon that sense of 
universal ownership and responsibility. And the street behind 
yours means every street. 
It is not enough that your garden adds to the meagre total 
of the town’s beauty. You, who are your brother’s gardener, 
can see that his plot also flourishes. The cuttings you throw 
away in a year would start a dozen gardens. These you can 
share with him, these and your information, your books, your 
magazines. You can exchange seeds and plants and experi¬ 
ences with him. You can join your town’s garden club, or, if 
it has none, you can start one. In other words, you can go 
about doing good with flowers. 
T is as old as the Sierras, this idea. A legend says that 
when Eve was driven forth from the Garden the only 
treasure she took with her was a rose plant, the like of which 
. has, flourished in all lands ever since. Faithfully have the 
daughters of Eve carried on the tradition. 
It was a woman, Martha Daniell Logan, who a century 
and a half ago wrote the first American book on flowers 
and their culture. She also wrote a Gardener’s Kalendar, 
with the work laid out day by day, very much like the Kalen¬ 
dar on another page of this magazine. 
It was a woman who, twenty years ago, conceived the 
idea of improving the gardens on the street behind hers. 
She formed a circle of her friends, and the first garden 
club came into existence. Today the membership of the vari¬ 
ous women’s garden clubs in America numbers over 10,000. 
Later mere man approvingly put his shoulder to the wheel 
and joined the movement. In towns all over the country 
this year are being conducted garden and yard improvement 
competitions support¬ 
ed by men’s clubs and 
chambers of c o m - 
merce. 
Women started the 
movement because 
women have an in¬ 
stinctive habit of 
making the home and 
its surroundings beau¬ 
tiful. Men took it up 
because they knew 
that better gardens 
meant better towns. 
To grow flowers 
where once was a 
weedy wilderness 
works the same mir¬ 
acle of regeneration 
in a town’s soul that 
contact with the 
fresh-turned earth 
works in the soul of 
man. 
YOURS 
T 
forth to 
of his 
HE sower in the 
parable went 
sow. 
lands 
Some 
were 
IN PRAISE OF APPLE TREES 
i 
Ill 
Our mountain firs are straight and tall; 
And oaks there he with mossy knees 
And pleasant shade; but, best of all, 
For comradeship, are apple trees. 
Your hemlock sighs of forest combe, 
Your pine of rocky height or glen; 
But apple orchards breathe of home ,— 
Their trees have always dwelt with 
men. 
II 
IV 
Waist-deep in fragrant meadow-grass, 
A kindly company are they; 
And what is richer than the mass 
Of bloom that buries them in May? 
Beneath their boughs the cattle graze, 
Among their leaves the robins flute, 
And bountifully autumn weighs 
Their branches low with hardy fruit. 
V 
Yes, elm and beech have stately charms 
And so have sycamore and lime; 
But apple trees have friendly arms 
That beg a little boy to climb. 
Arthur Guiterman. 
fertile, others not so 
much so, some not at 
all. Had he selected his 
seeds according to the soils into which they were to fall, it 
would have been a different story. 
Every town has its fertile soil, for there are natural gar¬ 
deners everywhere. Every town has its less fertile soil, and 
by co-operation even the most apathetic can be made devotees. 
Likewise has every town its soil which is not fertile at all 
—its neglected corners—and for such is required more labor. 
There is a busy railroad that courses its winding path 
through the rock and graveled hills of New England. For 
long years the right of way has cut unsightly wounds in 
woodland and pasture that never healed. 
Then came a railroad president who was also an idealist. 
He saw the wounds. He resolved to heal them. In those 
scars, where even weeds would not root, he dreamed the 
velvety pink beauty of rambler roses. An appropriation was 
made, totaling several thousands of dollars. Hundreds of 
vines, with their own soil, were set out unsparingly between 
towns and cities from one end of the line to the other. 
Today the traveler looks out with amazement and admira¬ 
tion upon this summer splendor, this work of a man who 
found the street behind his. The man has gone his way, but 
the lesson remains. He had chosen the right seed. He had 
also chosen a neglected soil. 
In developing our American roads we have been so intent 
on making the roadbeds good for men to pass along that we 
have neglected to make the roadsides good for men to look 
upon. We neglect the streets behind ours because we think 
we do not own them. 
There is no such thing as personal ownership of flowers. 
The winds scatter the seeds far afield, and what was your 
treasured posession this year is your neighbor’s next. 
The road belongs to everyone, and the man who would go 
about doing good with flowers might well turn his energies 
to it. An early start for the train some morning would give 
enough time to plant a dozen rambler cuttings to cover that 
unsightly wall. A Saturday afternoon would see planted 
enough seeds to make your passage and others beautiful 
with flowers the rest of the summer. 
T HESE are not flowers to pluck, but flowers to look at, 
flowers that brighten up a barren corner and quicken 
your blood when you pass. To plant them, of course, is a 
private charity. Yet what man of us hasn’t little secret kind¬ 
nesses he does when 
the crowd is not look¬ 
ing? 
Senhouse, the wan¬ 
derer of Hewlett’s 
novel, was moved by 
just such charity, and 
he went about plant¬ 
ing flowers in waste 
places of England. 
“Johnny Appleseed,” 
stirred by the same 
feeling, set out or¬ 
chards along our 
frontiers a hundred 
years ago. 
We cannot all 
tramp the countryside 
setting out orchards. 
We cannot all gather 
flowers from the ut¬ 
termost parts of the 
earth to plant in our 
neglected American 
meadows. But this 
we can realize — that 
charity and gardening 
only begin at home. 
There is always the 
street behind yours. 
