The Garden-Craft Series
Edited by L. H. Bailey
THE PRACTICAL GARDEN-BOOK
THE
PRACTICAL GARDEN-BOOK
CONTAINING THE SIMPLEST DIRECTIONS
FOR THE GROWING OF THE COMMONEST
THINGS ABOUT THE HOUSE AND GARDEN
BY
C. E. HUNN
AND
L. H. BAILEY
THIRD EDITION
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd.
1903
All rights reserved
Copyright, 1900
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
Set up and electrotyped March, 1900
Reprinted February, 1901, and June, 1903
Mount Pleasant Press
J. Horace McFarland Company
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
Like the love of music, books and pictures,the love of gardens comes with culture and leisureand with the ripening of the home life.The love of gardens, as of every other beautifuland refining thing, must increase to the end oftime. More and more must the sympathiesenlarge. There must be more points of contactwith the world. Life ever becomes richer.Gardening is more than the growing of plants:it is the expression of desire.
As there must be many gardeners, so theremust be many books. There must be books fordifferent persons and different ideals. The gardenmade by one’s own hands is always the bestgarden, because it is a part of oneself. A gardenmade by another may interest, but it is anotherperson’s individuality. A poor garden ofone’s own is better than a good garden in whichone may not dig. Many a poor soul has morehelp in a plant in the window than another hasin a plantation made by a gardener.
I would emphasize the home garden, made bythe members of the family. I would preach thebeauty of the common plants and the familiar[vi]places. These things are never old. Manytimes I have noted how intently an audience ofplant-lovers will listen to the most commonplacedetails respecting the cultivation of plants withwhich they have been always familiar. Therewas nothing new in what they heard; but theyliked to have the old story told over again, andevery detail called up a memory.
The same questions are asked every year, andthey always will be asked,—the questions aboutthe simplest garden operations. Upon this desirefor commonplace advice the horticulturaljournals live. A journal which publishes onlythings that are new would find little support.Some of these common questions I have tried toanswer in this little book. I wish them answeredin the simple and direct phrase of the gardener.Therefore I asked my friend C. E. Hunn, gardenerto the Horticultural Department of CornellUniversity, who lives with plants, to write advicefor one who would make a garden; andthis he did in a summer vacation. These notes,edited and amplified, now make this book.
L. H. BAILEY.
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