24 
House & Garden 
INTERNATIONAL GARDENING 
S TAMP collectors have many pleasant habits, but the pleasantest of 
all is their custom of writing to other stamp collectors. 
The four stamp collectors in this office, for example. They are busy 
executives, burdened with responsibilities and constantly pushed for 
time. Each day big baskets of correspondence go out from their desks. 
And yet they tell me that quite their most enjoyable correspondence is 
written to brother stamp collectors in foreign lands. 
One of them has been in communication with a Belgian philatelist 
for ten years. During the war the letters stopped. Now they are com¬ 
ing again, for Belgium is already sufficiently recovered to allow her 
tired business men" to take up the relaxation of their stamp albums. 
Another correspondent lived in Kiev, and letters came through regu¬ 
larly, bearing their tales of personal experiences and stamp ventures, 
until the Bolsheviki laid low that fair mother of towns. A third is a 
planter in South America. There were others in Germany, for the 
Germans are great philatelists, and some in France. 
T HINK what this means, this welding of a bond of a common hobby. 
For a common hobby forms a more dependable bond than can any 
amount of commerce. Commerce presupposes competition and com¬ 
petition raised to its highest degree means war. But the things that 
bring contentment and innocent pleasure, that delight the eye and 
quicken the brain to fine and far-flung imaginings, these things create 
a camaraderie not easily forgotten or readily shattered. 
There is also the flavor of romance and adventure about gifts from 
overseas, even about humble, everyday postage stamps. Though their 
intrinsic value be small, one prizes them above others because of the 
spirit that prompted their being sent and the distance they have traveled. 
Of course, not all stamp collectors ride their hobby this far afield. 
Some are content to buy and exchange duplicates with neighbors, and 
let it go at that. But the mark of the real 
devotee, the finished, the complete, the 
hardened philatelist is his foreign corre¬ 
spondence. And, as the enthusiast above 
has said, it is the pleasantest part of stamp 
collecting. 
G ARDEN lovers could well learn a les¬ 
son from the philatelist. They could, 
by correspondence with garden enthusiasts 
in other countries, make their gentle art 
much more of an international affair than 
it is. 
All gardens today are more or less inter¬ 
national. Scarcely a country under the sun 
but finds its representative in the perennial 
border, the rockery, the bog garden or the 
pool. The hollyhock brings a message from 
China, the anemone speaks of Japan. The 
long spurred columbine represents the 
Rockies and the vulgaris types Siberia. 
Transylvania has given us the bellflower 
and Armenia the star thistle. The Peruvian 
lily comes up the continent to us and the 
yellow day lily travels from the far-off 
Amur Valley. Hot Asia Minor is repre¬ 
sented by one kind of poppy and the arctic 
regions by another. I hus every complete 
garden has come to be a map of the world 
blossoming in color and varied foliage. 
This map could be made more interest¬ 
ing, more of a personal reality, if garden 
lovers corresponded with others in those 
countries from which these plants have 
come. There would be several desirable 
results. First to the plants themselves. As 
we have them today, foreign plants are 
usually hybridized a long distance from the 
original. Nurserymen have been so anxious 
to satisfy the American desire for novelties 
that much of the old, simple, native beauty 
of the original flowers has gone. The lily 
has been gilded out of all recognition, and 
many of our boasted double varieties can¬ 
not compare in simple loveliness with the 
original specimens. Letters from gardeners 
overseas would bring in their quota of 
precious seeds harvested in other hands. The next year those plants 
would furnish a vast amount of interest, enjoyment and study to the 
amateur here and, in many cases, would give him the old strain so 
much desired. 
E VEN more important would be the effect on the gardener. To have 
a flower in a friend's garden is a common practice. Garden lovers 
are not selfish and they dearly love to share plants and seeds with neigh¬ 
bors. This exchange makes for friendship and the better appearance 
of the community. What is done now in the small town can be done in 
the world at large. A common interest in such gentle and beautiful 
things as flowers will accomplish more than the mandates of a dozen 
League of Nations. It will bring enjoyment and pride, and it will give 
to American gardeners that which so many Americans lack, an inter¬ 
national interest. 
Common interest of this sort breaks down prejudice and goes a long 
way toward healing the wounds that the war has left us. I may dis¬ 
trust the German people as a whole, but I would feel differently about 
them, I think, if a slip sent me from a German garden lover’s rose tree 
were blossoming by my front steps today. I'm a little more lenient 
with England over Ireland because of a row of broad beans giving 
promise today, gift of a notoriously British Britisher. 
Think of the fortunate rosarians who were on Dean Hole’s corre¬ 
spondence list or Admiral Ward’s! The old dean, the old sailor are 
gone, but there are still giants alive today and, if the amateur has the 
temerity, she may dare their wrath by writing them. If the giants can¬ 
not be induced to speak, then there are others. Many of the prize win¬ 
ners in English rose exhibits have been workmen with no more garden 
space at their command than the allotment around a cottage. Men and 
women of this type often have an instinct for flowers and their experi¬ 
ences would be of great value if they could 
be induced to set them down in a letter. 
T HE first question the garden enthusiast 
will ask is, “How can I find these 
friends in other lands?” 
It would be a perfectly simple matter to 
write for names to the Garden Club of 
America, the International Garden Club of 
America, the Women’s National Farm and 
Garden Association, the Royal Horticul¬ 
tural Society, and the Women’s Farm and 
Garden Union of England. These names 
would give a start. From correspondents in 
England one might branch out to the Con¬ 
tinent. ' Fortunately, correspondence on the 
other side hasn't yet become a lost art. 
T HE purpose of this correspondence, of 
course, would not be the exchange of 
pleasantries on gardening in general, but of 
practical data on flowers in particular. No 
especial purpose will be served by rhap¬ 
sodies, but very definite and beneficial re¬ 
sults might be gained by correspondence 
between, say, American and French chrys¬ 
anthemum specialists, American and Japa¬ 
nese iris enthusiasts and American and 
English devotees of primroses. While the 
requisite information on all plants is found 
in Bailey’s Cyclopedia of Horticulture, 
there are special experiences applicable to 
special varieties, various personal color 
combinations and methods of planting that 
may not be found in the books. 
Searching for this data may seem an un¬ 
necessary waste of time and effort, and yet 
just such eagerness for all facts marks the 
true gardener. To make a pretty garden is 
one thing; to know the requirements and 
idiosyncrasies of each plant in the garden is 
quite another. One can never come to the 
end of gardening or know all there is to be 
learned. This is the secret of its fascina¬ 
tion. There are always other garden worlds 
to conquer. You can set out upon the quest 
now with a postage stamp. 
Thanksgiving 
We have not known (thank God for it!) 
Love tossed on wild adventurous seas,' 
Or sought for love on hills where sit 
The gods of bitter mysteries; 
We have not served their altar fires 
With fierce and perilous desires. 
But love instead has come to us 
As quietly as April rain 
On April woods, solicitous 
To quicken them to life again; 
. 4 ^ sweetly as the thrush’s voice 
Making attentive dawns rejoice. 
O happy traveler, I found 
A friendly light upon your face, 
The head that gentleness has crowned 
With tender gaiety and grace, 
Love deep and intimate that blessed 
My heart with rest, my heart with rest. 
—T heodore. Maynard. 
