
GARDEN 

The Utility 
of Beauty 
in Winning 
the War 
WENTY-FOUR years ago I sat with my partner, 
the late Frederick L. Atkins, in the office we 
shared. It was war time. We looked over our 
nurseries, then wrapped in a blanket of snow, and 
discussed, almost with a feeling of helplessness at first, 

ate 
Will your garden run to seed? Will weéds crowd out? a. > hi 
the blossoms along your walks)? Vyill*your lawn go * Flips, }Y 
uncut and your trees go wrong for lack@fprvfnjye; your a, 
roses become tangled; your hedge grow rotrelt tbe ¥ 
Will garden neglect inspire you to give and work 



our relation to the winning of the war. We thought 
of the active manufacturers, the builders, the great 
industrial financiers, who were the men, as they are 
now, to whom it is given to create fast and well the 
planes and tanks, the guns and munitions we must 
have. At first we envied them, for what can we do 
with our greenhouses and nurseries to help win this 
war for civilization? 
But as we passed along sanded walks through the 
warm nature-scented atmosphere of our greenhouses, 
we lost our troubles and ceased to envy these other 
workers, for right here in our own hands was a work and 
a duty as great as any of theirs. Everywhere about us 
were young green plants, myriads of them, millions of 
them, springing from seeds just coming up, being 
nurtured and transplanted. There were buds forming, 
and, here and there, blossoms opening. Everywhere there 
was fragrance and color and beauty. Then we felt, as 
I now feel, that these are God-given materials to help 
win the war. 
So the leaves and buds and blooms in our great 
nurseries, yet in their winter rest, are good to work with 
for the same purpose. In a world strained with anxiety 
and tense with labor are not these buds and blooms to 
come, these green things about us, full of the rays of 
sunshine and sustaining hope? 
Some faint-hearted nurserymen tell me that people 
are not going to buy any trees and plants, shrubs and 
flowers while the war lasts. 
I don’t believe it. You don’t believe it. 
January 31, 1942 
strain for defense? 
No indeed! 
With fourteen men necessarily back of every man 
on the firing line, we of the fighting rear are not 
“slackers.” 
Ask the aviator, the soldier in uniform, what he 
wants to see on his rare days at home. Indeed, to his 
home he looks for relief and rest. It is the one place 
where he ought to be able to renew energy, to take 
fresh courage. 
Right here, it seems to me, we must take up our 
share of the work of winning this war. We can save and 
scrimp and earn and pay. We can do without things 
that will provide precious materials of offense, but 
never before have the trees and flowers and shrubs of 
our gardens everywhere in the land had so practical 
a work to perform—the work of restoring energy, of 
building morale, of helping by their fragrance and color 
and beauty to keep fresh, hopeful, confident those who 
must back up the fighting front. 
It does seem that all the years of growth since the 
last war have tended to make us more effective for this 
greater struggle in accumulating, planting and develop- 
ing Nature’s best and most beautiful products here 
in America for American homes and gardens. 
Let us utilize this beauty for you. Let us introduce 
it into your lives and homes, and so together, working 
each as best he can, help win the war. 

