Manual of Gardening | Page 3

Washing and scrubbing the trees Gathering and keeping fruit Almond; apples; apricot; blackberry; cherry; cranberry; currant; dewberry; fig; gooseberry; grape; mulberry; nuts; orange; peach; pear; plum; quince; raspberry; strawberry;






CHAPTER X
THE GROWING OF THE VEGETABLE PLANTS Vegetables for six The classes of vegetables The culture of the leading vegetables Asparagus; artichoke; artichoke; Jerusalem; bean; beet; broccoli; brussels sprouts; cabbage; carrot; cauliflower; celeriac; celery; chard; chicory; chervil; chives; collards; corn salad; corn; cress; cucumber; dandelion; egg-plant; endive; garlic; horseradish; kale; kohlrabi; leek; lettuce; mushroom; mustard; muskmelon; okra; onion; parsley; parsnip; pea; pepper; potato; radish; rhubarb; salsify; sea-kale; sorrel; spearmint; spinach; squash; sweet-potato; tomato; turnips and rutabagas; watermelon.






CHAPTER XI
SEASONAL REMINDERS For the North For the South
INDEX

LIST OF PLATES
PLATE
I. The open center.
II. The plan of the place.
III. Open-center treatment in a semi-tropical country.
IV. Subtropical bedding against a building. Caladiums, cannas, abutilons, permanent rhododendrons, and other large stuff, with tuberous begonias and balsams between.
V. A subtropical bed. Center of cannas, with border of Pennisetum longistylum (a grass) started in late February or early March.
VI. A tree that gives character to a place.
VII. Bedding with palms. If a bricked-up pit is made about the porch, pot palms may be plunged in it in spring and tub conifers in winter; and fall bulbs in tin cans (so that the receptacles will not split with frost) may be plunged among the evergreens.
VIII. A well-planted entrance. Common trees and bushes, with Boston ivy. on the post, and Berberis Thunbergii in front.
IX. A rocky bank covered with permanent informal planting.
X. A shallow lawn pond, containing water-lilies, variegated sweet flag, iris, and subtropical bedding at the rear; fountain covered with parrot's feather (_Myriophyllum proserpinacoides_).
XI. A back yard with summer house, and gardens beyond.
XII. A back yard with heavy flower-garden planting.
XIII. The pageant of summer. Gardens of C.W. Dowdeswell, England, from a painting by Miss Parsons.
XIV. Virginia creeper screen, on an old fence, with wall-flowers and hollyhocks in front.
XV. Scuppernong grape, the arbor vine of the South. This plate shows the noted scuppernongs on Roanoke Island, of which the origin is unknown, but which were of great size more than one hundred years ago.
XVI. A flower-garden of China asters, with border of one of the dusty millers (_Centaurea_).
XVII. The peony. One of the most steadfast of garden flowers.
XVIII. Cornflower or bachelor's button. _Centaurea Cyanus._
XIX. Pyracantha in fruit. One of the best ornamental-fruited plants for the middle and milder latitudes.
XX. A simple but effective window-box, containing geraniums, petunias, verbenas, heliotrope, and vines.
XXI. The king of fruits. Newtown as grown in the Pacific country.
XXII. Wall-training of a pear tree.
XXIII. Cherry currant.
XXIV. Golden Bantam sweet corn.
XXV. The garden radish, grown in fall, of the usual spring sorts.

A MANUAL OF GARDENING






CHAPTER I
THE POINT OF VIEW
Wherever there is soil, plants grow and produce their kind, and all plants are interesting; when a person makes a choice as to what plants he shall grow in any given place, he becomes a gardener or a farmer; and if the conditions are such that he cannot make a choice, he may adopt the plants that grow there by nature, and by making the most of them may still be a gardener or a farmer in some degree.
Every family, therefore, may have a garden. If there is not a foot of land, there are porches or windows. Wherever there is sunlight, plants may be made to grow; and one plant in a tin-can may be a more helpful and inspiring garden to some mind than a whole acre of lawn and flowers may be to another.
The satisfaction of a garden does not depend on the area, nor, happily, on the cost or rarity of the plants. It depends on the temper of the person. One must first seek to love plants and nature, and then to cultivate the happy peace of mind that is satisfied with little.
In the vast majority of cases a person will be happier if he has no rigid and arbitrary notions, for gardens are moodish, particularly with the novice. If plants grow and thrive, he should be happy; and if the plants that thrive chance not to be the ones that he planted, they are plants nevertheless, and nature is satisfied with them.
We are wont to covet the things that we cannot have; but we are happier when we love the things that grow because they must. A patch of lusty pigweeds, growing and crowding in luxuriant abandon, may be a better and more worthy object of affection than a bed of coleuses in which every spark of life and spirit and individuality has been sheared out and suppressed. The man who worries morning and night about the dandelions in the lawn will find great relief in loving the dandelions. Each blossom is worth more than a gold coin, as it shines in the exuberant sunlight of