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the impossible. If you do, read a
poultry advertisement and go into the hen business instead of trying to
garden. I have grown pumpkins that necessitated the tearing down of
the fence in order to get them out of the lot, and sometimes, though not
frequently, have had to use the axe to cut through a stalk of asparagus,
but I never "made $17,000 in ten months from an eggplant in a city
back-yard." No, if you are going to take up gardening, you will have to
work, and you will have a great many disappointments. All that I, or
anyone else, could put between the two covers of a book will not make

a gardener of you. It must be learned through the fingers, and back, too,
as well as from the printed page. But, after all, the greatest reward for
your efforts will be the work itself; and unless you love the work, or
have a feeling that you will love it, probably the best way for you, is to
stick to the grocer for your garden.
Most things, in the course of development, change from the simple to
the complex. The art of gardening has in many ways been an exception
to the rule. The methods of culture used for many crops are more
simple than those in vogue a generation ago. The last fifty years has
seen also a tremendous advance in the varieties of vegetables, and the
strange thing is that in many instances the new and better sorts are
more easily and quickly grown than those they have replaced. The new
lima beans are an instance of what is meant. While limas have always
been appreciated as one of the most delicious of vegetables, in many
sections they could never be successfully grown, because of their
aversion to dampness and cold, and of the long season required to
mature them. The newer sorts are not only larger and better, but hardier
and earlier; and the bush forms have made them still more generally
available.
Knowledge on the subject of gardening is also more widely diffused
than ever before, and the science of photography has helped
wonderfully in telling the newcomer how to do things. It has also lent
an impetus and furnished an inspiration which words alone could never
have done. If one were to attempt to read all the gardening instructions
and suggestions being published, he would have no time left to practice
gardening at all. Why then, the reader may ask at this point, another
garden book? It is a pertinent question, and it is right that an answer be
expected in advance. The reason, then, is this: while there are garden
books in plenty, most of them pay more attention to the "content" than
to the form in which it is laid before the prospective gardener. The
material is often presented as an accumulation of detail, instead of by a
systematic and constructive plan which will take the reader step by step
through the work to be done, and make clear constantly both the
principles and the practice of garden making and management, and at
the same time avoid every digression unnecessary from the practical

point of view. Other books again, are either so elementary as to be of
little use where gardening is done without gloves, or too elaborate,
however accurate and worthy in other respects, for an every-day
working manual. The author feels, therefore, that there is a distinct field
for the present book.
And, while I still have the reader by the "introduction" buttonhole, I
want to make a suggestion or two about using a book like this. Do not,
on the one hand, read it through and then put it away with the
dictionary and the family Bible, and trust to memory for the instruction
it may give; do not, on the other hand, wait until you think it is time to
plant a thing, and then go and look it up. For instance, do not, about the
middle of May, begin investigating how many onion seeds to put in a
hill; you will find out that they should have been put in, in drills, six
weeks before. Read the whole book through carefully at your first
opportunity, make a list of the things you should do for your own
vegetable garden, and put opposite them the proper dates for your own
vicinity. Keep this available, as a working guide, and refer to special
matters as you get to them.
Do not feel discouraged that you cannot be promised immediate
success at the start. I know from personal experience and from the
experience of others that "book-gardening" is a practical thing. If you
do your work carefully and thoroughly, you may be confident that a
very great measure of