$2 Download. Home Vegetable Gardening. 1911 – 332p

Chapter I

INTRODUCTION

FORMERLY it was the custom for gardeners

to invest their labors and achievements

with a mystery and secrecy which might

well have discouraged any amateur from tres passing

upon such difficult ground. *'Trade

secrets'' in either flower or vegetable growing were

acquired by the apprentice only through practice

and observation, and in turn jealously guarded by

him until passed on to some younger brother in

the profession. Every garden operation was made

to seem a wonderful and difficult undertaking.

Now, all that has changed. In fact the pendulum

has swung, as it usually does, to the other extreme.

Often, if you are a beginner, you have been flatter ingly

told in print that you could from the beginning

do just as well as the experienced gardener.

My garden friend, it cannot, as a usual thing, be

done. Of course, it may happen and sometimes

does. You might, being a trusting lamb, go down

into Wall Street with $10,000 and make a fortune.

Home Vegetable Gardening

You know that you would not be likely to; the

chances are very much against you. This garden

business is a matter of common sense ; and the man,

or the woman, who has learned by experience how

to do a thing, whether it is cornering the market or

growing cabbages, naturally does it better than the

one who has not. Do not expect the impossible. If

you do, read a poultry advertisement and go into the

hen business instead of tr}ang 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 egg plant

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