122 
House & Garden 
ON HOUSE ^ GARDEN’S BOOKSHELF 
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{Continued jrom page 120) 
T he Vegetable Garden, By Adolf 
Kruhm. Doubleday, Page & Co. 
It is a question whether a book on 
vegetable gardening should be written 
for reading or for reference. Mr. 
Kruhm, in this volume for the amateur, 
has effected a fairly successful compro¬ 
mise. His chapters progress right on from 
“The Economic Value of the Kitchen 
Garden’’, through “How to Maintain 
Fertility” and “The Midsummer Gar¬ 
den” to “Fall Work in the Garden.” It 
is not difficult to learn all about the 
culture of carrots, say, merely by- 
looking up “carrots” in the in¬ 
dex and finding a brief but com¬ 
plete discourse on the subject. Thus 
you may read through the book simply 
to gain a general knowledge of vegetable 
gardens, or you may find with perfect 
ease the particular planf or practice 
which interests you at the^ moment. 
There is one stumbling block to read¬ 
ing the book through from the very- 
beginning. In his eagerness to make 
vegetables-fresh-from-your-garden seem 
the only kind 'fit to eat the author draws 
such a lurid, distasteful picture of store 
vegetables that one’s appetite for both 
this sort of food and the book itself 
is apt to be somewhat diminished. 
H ouse Pl.axts, By Parker T. 
Barnes, Doubleday, Page & Co. 
For all those who have experienced 
difficulty in getting plants to grow in¬ 
doors there are words of real encourage¬ 
ment in the preface to this volume for 
the amateur. The reader is assured that 
only those plants are mentioned in the 
book which are sure to succeed, and 
that if a selection is made from the 
various kinds enumerated failure is next 
to impossible, unless it be brought about 
“by carelessness and inattention to the 
first principles of cultivation.” The 
culture of all these plants, from cac¬ 
tuses to carnations, is thoroughly de¬ 
scribed, and granting a supply of sun¬ 
light and carefully controlled heating 
arrangement, it seems perfectly reason¬ 
able that the high hopes Mr. Barnes 
asks the reader to entertain might be 
fulfilled. 
T he Blossom Circle of the Year 
IN Southern Gardens, by Julia 
Lester Dillon. Published by the A. T. 
De La Mare Co., Inc. 
This little book of Mrs. Dillon’s is an 
extremely practical thing, done in a per¬ 
sonal, intimate style. It is chiefly valu¬ 
able as an outline of the plant material 
suitable for the Southern States, though 
it is more than an outline in this re¬ 
spect. It tells what plants will thrive in 
that section of the country and de¬ 
scribes the ways in which these plants 
may be most effectively used, and the 
advice given is largely a product of the 
author’s own experience. The horticul¬ 
tural directions are arranged according 
to the months, which is a sound method 
and always gratifying to the amateur. 
F orestry for profit, by Theo 
philus Tunis. Published by' G. P. 
Putnam’s Sons. There are numberless 
woodlots throughout the country which 
might be turned from an expense into 
an asset if their owners could only be 
persuaded that this were possible. Mr. 
Tunis’ methods are new, and they seem 
as logical as they are unique. The 
author has actually demonstrated their 
practicability, and with remarkable suc¬ 
cess, on his Lotuswood plantation. The 
cardinal points of his system are good 
drainage, careful preparation of the soil, 
proper spacing and selection, regular 
cultivation, and annual pruning of 
species and varieties for a rotation and 
gradual thinning of the marketable 
product. The book is well illustrated. 
O LD Fashioned Songs of a House 
AND Garden, by Florence Van 
Fleet Lyman. Published by G. P. Put¬ 
nam’s Sons. Behind this slight collection 
of verses is an earnest desire to express 
the author’s affection for her home. It 
is eminently successful. We all have 
feelings in varying degrees and voice 
them, audibly or not, in our own partic¬ 
ular way; so we cannot help recogniz¬ 
ing our own type of devotion in these 
“old fashioned songs” of Mrs. Lyman’s 
and being touched accordingly. The il¬ 
lustrations show’ an unusually attractive 
house and garden, and the frontispiece 
shows the author under an arch of the 
roses named after her brother. Dr. 
Walter Van Fleet. 
T he Burgess Flower Book for 
Children, by Thornton W. Burg¬ 
ess. Published by Little, Brown, and Co. 
Wherein Peter Rabbit and his friends 
are sent adventuring among the wild- 
flowers for the horticultural benefit of 
that popular creature’s youthful follow¬ 
ing. Though it must be somewhat be¬ 
wildering at times to be told that prac¬ 
tically every plant one encounters is 
encumbered with several names. It can¬ 
not help but be confusing to anyone, 
but to a child especially, to learn that 
“the flower Peter was looking up at was 
the Wild Morning-glory, or Great Bind¬ 
weed, also called Hedge Bindweed. In 
some places it is called Lady’s Night¬ 
cap.” But such is the penalty we pay 
for succumbing to a loosely handled, if 
sometimes picturesque, nomenclature. It 
is in books for beginners, like this one, 
that some start might be wisely made 
toward simplification. Otherwise we like 
Mr. Burgess’ idea and the way he has 
presented it, with its delightful story 
and its many, many pictures—most of 
them w-ell colored. 
L ists of plant Types, by Stephen 
F. Hamblin. Published by the Har¬ 
vard University Press. While these 
splendidly organized lists are especially 
useful to the professional designer they 
make a valuable book of reference for 
the garden amateur. The lists are sep¬ 
arated into three sections: Trees, Shrubs 
and Woody Vines, and Perennials and 
Annuals. Under shrubs, for instance, 
there are lists for all the different 
heights, then there are lists for all the 
different habits, for all the different 
types of leafage, all the different colored 
fruits, all the different flowers, lists for 
those which grow in certain kinds of 
soil, for those which require certain 
kinds of cultivation, and finally there 
are lists for the different uses to which 
the shrubs may be put. It is not as 
involved as it seems. No common names 
are given nor any descriptions. 
H OW TO Know Wild Fruits, by 
Maude Gridley Peterson. Published 
by the Macmillan Co. The shrubs and 
small trees which bear colored fruits are 
among the most decorative in the land¬ 
scape scheme, yet we have actually 
made use of very few of them in our 
gardens and on our grounds. That is 
one reason why this book comes along 
at an opportune time. Its aim is to en¬ 
able us to get acquainted with them. 
The plants which bear decorative fruits 
are listed in six different groups: those 
whose fruits are red or reddish purple, 
black or dark purple, blue, yellow, green 
and white, and the identifications are 
made easy by descriptions and carefully 
drawn illustrations. To know these 
plants, and to use them, is to achieve 
unusual beauty in our fall and winter 
surroundings. 
Richard H. Pratt 
