28 
House & Garden 
THE GARDEN BEAUTIFUL is the GARDEN USEFUL 
As Can be Attested by Those Who Answered the Call to 
Food Gardening Last Year 
P. S. RIDSDALE 
G ARDENS have been the sub¬ 
ject of poetry and of romance 
since the dawn of history. Dreamers 
and philosophers have wandered in 
them and found there the inspira¬ 
tion for their songs and stories. The 
great poets and dramatists have re¬ 
velled in the glories of gardens and 
have imagined the wonderful scenes 
of romance for which the natural 
surroundings served as an inspira¬ 
tional setting. 
There is a fascination about gar¬ 
dens which has caused man from the 
earliest days to delight in them. 
From the great natural parks which 
many cities throughout the world 
have set aside as breathing and 
beauty spots down to the smallest 
flower garden blooming by the side of 
a little home, they have exhibited as 
great a range of style and manner as 
any other forms of outward display 
which man has prepared for his own 
pleasure and entertainment. 
About the country houses of the 
United States and in the thousands 
of beautiful suburban homes which 
surround most of its cities, the garden 
always is a feature of the place. 
There when the weather will permit 
the guests are often received and en¬ 
tertained. It may follow the lines of 
the formal Italian or French school 
of landscape gardening, the rather 
free and easy style of the English type, 
or be a combination of several of these 
varieties. Whatever its 
form, it portrays prob¬ 
ably more than any 
other outward symbol 
the character and per¬ 
sonality of the individ¬ 
ual to whom it belongs. 
vegetables than in one filled with well- 
trimmed box elder. There is a richer 
beauty in a bed of fine lettuce than in 
a bed of pansies. For back of it all 
today is the spirit of a devoted patriot¬ 
ism. The man who plants a garden 
today is helping to make his home and 
his country safe for democracy. Every 
seed he sows, every vegetable he raises 
means that much added to the food 
supply of the nation and to the 
strength of democracy’s fighting 
forces. 
With the great and growing need 
for food to feed the army of the 
United States, the Allies of America, 
and its own people, there is a spiritual 
beauty about a garden of vegetables 
which surpasses that of a sweet 
scented garden of flowers. Above 
every home garden in the United 
States there is floating in spirit, if not 
in reality, the red, white and blue of 
the American flag. Last year there 
were planted in this country 3,000,000 
home gardens. This was the estimate 
of the War Food Garden Commission, 
through whose encouragement and in¬ 
spiration the “war garden” movement 
was started. 
Every Home a Garden Spot 
Nothing can be finer than a nation 
of gardens. Certain states and coun¬ 
ties take pride in being referred to as 
“garden” states or counties. It should 
be the aim of every portion of the 
United States and of 
ever} 7 individual home 
in that portion to be 
known as “the garden 
spot of America.” 
Nothing could be 
worthy of higher 
praise than such a 
display of patriotism. 
There was a time 
when this country 
might truly have been 
called a nation of 
gardens. It would be 
well if such a day 
could come again. It 
would be a step back¬ 
ward which would be 
a move forward. In 
the early days of the 
Republic few homes 
could be found where 
there was not growing, 
either on the side lot 
or in the rear, a fine 
array of vegetables, 
from whose varied as¬ 
sortment the family 
was supplied through¬ 
out the year with a 
considerable portion 
of its food supply. 
There was sound 
(Continued on p. 72) 
A New Expression of 
Individuality 
Today the garden 
can express the individ¬ 
uality of the owner in 
another way. It has 
gained a new power 
and a new meaning. 
It has come to express 
another side of the in¬ 
dividual’s character. 
The garden has come 
to stand for patriotism, 
and every American 
citizen who has a food 
garden to show at his 
home is wearing a 
badge of liberty. For 
food will help to win 
the war; and rows of 
red beets are more to be 
desired than rows of red 
roses. There is some¬ 
thing more precious in 
a garden filled with 
well-trimmed green 
fir jives 
A war garden in the autumn, showing the 
celery trenched and the late lettuce heading 
There is genuine beauty in a well-kept war garden with its straight 
rows of varying plants, like ranks of soldiers assembled for parade 
