Editor’s Note: The garden club is a great factor in neighborhood bet¬ 
ter me tit. Here is a true story of the work of a certain such club and its 
accomplishments taken from the diary of one of its members. IVhat this 
club actually did should be a stimulus to all who love gardens and a guide to 
the ways and means of improving our towns and villages. These chapters 
began in the February issue, when the organisation of the Club zoos dis¬ 
cussed. Each installment shows how the program of activities was followed 
out . 
M R. Parke Gladden has joined the Club! Isn't that great? 
And from “Stone Acres” are to come the plants for 
the neighborhood garden that we are starting on the vacant lots 
that slope down back of the jail—a location that we selected 
in preference to several others because it zvus the jail, and be¬ 
cause the section is desperately in need of having something 
started other than a fight or a wife-beating. A stout fence is to 
go around the place first of all — we are not so naive as to expect 
regards for flowers or for anything in such a neighborhood with¬ 
out imposing armament — set up by a local concern who make 
wrought-iron fences and who loaned this one. It is to be put in 
place in sections, and can be taken down when they want it or we 
are through with it; and a neat little sign is to go on it telling the 
world that they make it, and put it there and maintain it. 
I am so glad that we are beginning, as a club, to do something 
of this sort—for if a garden club does not, who in the world ever 
will? It meant a lot of fussing to get it going, of course, and no 
end of running to this one and seeing that one; but once we got 
under way, the committee had no real hindrances, and the club is 
hoping to do more of this sort of thing in various sections, if this 
works out well. 
We shall have shows and displays there, and admit visitors— 
neighborhood denizens!—certain days, under strong but abso¬ 
lutely unobtrusive guard ; and I can see in it the richest possi¬ 
bilities for good. A few quick-growing annuals are being sown 
now, but much of the entire space is provided for by our new 
member—and he undertakes to see the things into the ground at 
once, without loss. So that we are actually to have a park, 
sprung full fledged from the brow of the hill, with shrubbery 
suitably disposed and plants in flower, without any tiresome wait¬ 
ing. And, of course, the thing will be even more effective this 
wav than through the slower processes of Nature, for the change 
will be most striking and the full force of the contrast will show— 
which is a good thing all around. 
This is rose-show month. And a wonderful talk on roses we 
had at our meeting at Miss Lucy’s, given by one of the greatest 
rose men in the country, whom Mr. Gladden was instrumental in 
getting. Of course his lecture was paid for; and a larger fee I 
am sure than the club could think of expending must be his, but 
perhaps he came partly from friendship, or perhaps the master of 
“Stone Acres” made up the difference. 
He unmistakably loves the rose, this great rosarian, with a 
single-hearted love, indeed; and he prefaced the practical part of 
his talk with a dip into the past that fairly took my breath away — 
for what a wonderful past it is that this flower has! How many 
ages have men loved it—and how many different kinds of men 
have loved it! How carefully has it been tended and watched 
over, century by century, for uncountable centuries; what joy has 
it not brought to men’s hearts as it has responded, century by cen¬ 
tury, to this watchful care! Of all the world of flowers, tradition 
names it the first to have been brought in from the wilderness 
and known and grown as a “double" flower. And yet men to-day 
are cultivating and tending and watching as assiduously over 
just this same flower as they have ever done. Really, is it not 
wonderful ? 
I found out that I am quite mediaeval about roses in one way; 
they must be sweet smelling — oh, heavenly sweet! — to satisfy my 
taste. And that is what all the rose lovers of ancient time — and 
rhyme — insisted upon. 
“The savour of the roses swote 
Me smote right to the herte rote,” 
sang Chaucer—at least I think it was Chaucer — and that is ex¬ 
actly what the savour of a “proper” rose to-day will do. Indeed, 
there is nothing so disappointing in all the world out of doors — 
I’m quoting the rose man, please remember! — as a rose that does 
not “to the root of the heart” reach with its glorious odor. 
It rather pleased me to learn that, so far at least, very little is 
( Continued on page 482) 
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