INTERESTING BOOKS 
Here are books worth reading. All offered can be sup¬ 
plied promptly. Prices are post-paid. Please note, though, 
that since I am neither a circulating library nor a second¬ 
hand book store, I cannot very well allow return of books 
once sent out. There is, by the way, no finer present for a 
garden-loving friend than a book of this kind. 
OTHER BOOKS—My descriptive book list, from 
which the books offered on this page have been se¬ 
lected, will be sent gladly on request. Ask for the 
Special Book List. 
ROCK GARDEN PLANTS—Clarence Elliott. No com¬ 
pilation this; it is written out of the fullness of Mr. Elliott’s 
long experience. He knows every plant that he describes 
through the actual growing of it. His word-pictures are 
vivid, his directions accurate, his comments on the merits 
and demerits of the various plants, candid, frank, pungent. 
The suggestions as to the alpine lawn, and does it surprise 
that alpine plants may be grown elsewhere than in a rock 
pile, are alone worth the cost of the book. Altogether it is 
a highly valuable anthology of the materials of gardening. 
328 pages. $3.00. 
GARDENING IN THE GREENHOUSE—Dorrance. A 
book for the home gardener who has, or wants to have, a 
little greenhouse, just for his own pleasure. It starts with 
the planning of the greenhouse, usually, of course, a house 
lean-to, and goes on then to the planning of the winter gar¬ 
den, to make the horticultural year a complete cycle. Every 
phase of the care of a small greenhouse is covered in the ten 
chapters, including even a helpful garden calendar. The 
important problems of watering, ventilation, insects, care of 
cut flowers, fertilizing and temperatures, are handled in detail. 
Directions are also given for the early starting of plants to 
be put out later in the garden. There is always a feeling 
of comfort in looking out at snow and ice from behind a sum¬ 
mer-warm window, but there is a real fascination in being 
able to defy winter from a little flower-filled garden under 
glass. 11 full pages of varied and pointed line drawings. 
150 pages. $1.50. 
THE WINDOW GARDEN—Buxton. This book is the re¬ 
sult of many happy years with house plants. It attempts to 
solve the problems of the average amateur as concerned with 
propagation, soils, fertilization, potting, watering and gen¬ 
eral care. A chapter is devoted to plants, both old and new, 
for hanging pots, and another to bulbs for the window gar¬ 
den'. Suggestions are made for over-coming hot, dry air, 
possibly the greatest foe of house plants. Many unusual 
plants have been tested, photographed and described. Clear 
and simple instructions are given for hybridizing, a most 
interesting hobby for the amateur who wishes to produce 
new and lovely varieties. This book is not a compilation; 
it is written purely from experience, and the author has ac¬ 
tually grown all the plants described and illustrated in it. 
160 pages. $1.50. 
SOUTH AFRICAN PLANTS FOR AMERICAN GAR¬ 
DENS—Coombs. Introducing a whole new field of fas¬ 
cinating garden plants: the gold-dusted Nerines, metallic 
Ixias, fragrant Gladiolus, rare daisy-annuals in expanding 
chromatic range, the hosts of succulents, intriguing window 
plants, secretive stone-simulates. Details of cultivation are 
given, special recommendations, a list of dealers. The author 
is a recognized authority on this brilliant plant group, and 
here offers the results of several years of study and ex¬ 
periment. It is the only popular books on a subject of wide 
and increasing interest to all who garden. Fully indexed, 
17 plants illustrated in color, 73 in half-tone. $4.50. 
WILD FLOWERS—Homer D. House. A really beautiful 
book of 626 pages, that will assuredly appeal to any lover 
of wild flowers. It is printed on fine quality paper, and 
gives 364 photographic reproductions of wild flowers in full 
color, together with full, interesting and accurate textual de¬ 
scription. $3.95. 
GARDEN LILIES—Preston. A very well-done book for 
the beginner with Lilies, and one that even the professional 
or commercial grower will find helpful. It does not attempt 
to cover the entire Lily field, treating chiefly of those kinds 
with which Miss Preston has had growing experience while 
handling the Lily trials and breeding work at the Central 
Experimental Farm, Ottawa, Canada. Naturally kinds that 
thrive at Ottawa are likely to be pretty safe anywhere in the 
United States. The book is unpretentious, and written in 
simple and understandable language, but it is in no sense a 
primer-manual. It is one of my own valued references. 128 
pages. $1.25. 
FIELD BOOK OF AMERICAN WILD FLOWERS— 
Mathews. A most dependable and convenient guide to the 
wild flowers and shrubs east of the Mississippi. My own 
copy is now much worn. I have carried it with me, along 
with my more technical botanic manuals, on field trips for 
many years. That will indicate my personal estimate of its 
value. It is delightfully illustrated, thoroughly well-written, 
interesting always, and so arranged that identification of any 
given species is comparatively easy. 400 illustrations. 30 
color plates. 590 pages. $3.50. 
FIELD BOOK OF AMERICAN TREES AND SHRUBS 
—Mathews. As important in its field as the Field Book of 
American Wild Flowers by the same author, described above. 
The two are, indeed, parts of one whole, and both are needed 
128 drawings, 16 color plates. 482 pages. $3.50. 
THE COUNTRY KITCHEN—Lutes. Here is a saucy little 
book, indigenous as pumpkin pie, and indeed with much 
about pumpkin pie and other food as deliciously old-time 
American. It is the story of a country family of the 1870’s; 
of Father, autocratic, obstinate, kindly, generous, and with 
a most appreciative appetite for good food; of Mother, with 
plenty of spirit, who eased Father along, but who had her 
own ways of bringing him to terms; of “Delly,” wide-eyed 
and sharp-eared, who took it all in, and now, so many years 
afterward, is telling the tale. It is filled with anecdote and 
incident, with wisdom and wit; filled, too, with interweavings 
of mighty cookeries, and country recipes of rich enticemeiTt. 
Not by any means a book for the dyspeptic, unless like the 
good folk of Mark Twain’s Hadleyburg, he has decided that 
building of strength lies in being led into temptation. $1.75. 
USEFUL WILD PLANTS—Saunders. Our food plants, 
and our economic plants generally, we have inherited from 
the usages of our ancestors, much as we inherit our politi¬ 
cal viewpoints, and, dare I say, our religions; which means, 
naturally, that our food plants are Eurasian species, tamed 
in times beyond memory. That certain new-world plants 
did finally make their way into world consciousness we 
know, tomato and potato are prime examples, but neither was 
grown considerably until centuries after the discovery. Sup¬ 
pose that today all cultivated plants were destroyed, all 
over-seas communication barred, so that we in North Amer¬ 
ica must go back to the ultra-primitive to establish once 
more our food supplies. If we doubt that it could be done, 
that new food plants could be developed to replace the old, 
then it must be because we have not read this book. It takes 
up in detail, and in convincing description, all those plants 
of the United States and Canada that served the Indian, or 
the following pioneer, for food, beverage, or fabric. There 
is an air of Swiss Family Robinson magic about it that will 
appeal to everyman’s imagination, yet is based firmly on 
sound comprehension of historic realities. Like all Mr. 
Saunders’ books, it is highly readable. Illustrated. 270 
pages. $3.00. 
HORTUS: A CONCISE DICTIONARY OF GARDEN¬ 
ING—L. H. and Ethel Z. Bailey. Easy to use, accurate, 
and non-technical, this great book comes closer than any 
other single volume to answering every question about gar¬ 
dening. It includes every kind of ornamental, fruit, and 
vegetable plant grown today with brief but complete infor¬ 
mation on their uses, cultivation, hardiness, propagation, 
preferred soil, color, identification, etc. Common names are 
used throughout, all botanical terms are defined, and the 
book is so conveniently arranged and compressed that it is 
marvelously easy to handle. 35 illustrations, 652 pages. $5.00. 
CYCLOPEDIA OF HORTICULTURE—Bailey. The uni¬ 
versally accepted authority on horticulture. Intensely inter¬ 
esting. Three volumes, 3,637 pages. Four thousand illustra¬ 
tions of which 96 are full page, and 24 are color plates. 
Gives full descriptions and cultural data on thousands of 
plants. Then there are general articles on many interesting 
horticultural subjects, including one of 20 pages on “Apples,” 
treating apple-growing in all of its phases, and discussing 
its problems. The article on “Arboriculture” covers over 30 
pages, and takes up pretty thoroughly the growing of trees, 
kinds suited for different places and different purposes, care 
diseases, moving of large trees, and the like. The subject of 
“Planting” is discussed in fifty pages, divided into such 
headings as “Bog Gardening,” “Planting on Walls,” “Succu¬ 
lent Plants,” “Shrubbery in the Landscape,” “Winter Pro¬ 
tection,” “Plants for the Seaside,” and many others. Then 
throughout the three volumes there are shorter articles on 
matters of varied gardening interest, Aquatics, Rock Gar¬ 
dens, Window Gardens, Vegetable Growing, Greenhouses, 
Bulbs, Hedges, to name a few out of many. All this, be it 
remembered, is in addition to thousands of descriptions of 
flowers, trees, etc., listed alphabetically. In my opinion, no 
greater value in horticultural literature has ever been 
offered than this. It is a gardening library in itself. The 
complete three-volume set, $15.00. 
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