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The Art of Gardening
| 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 twenty 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 newer sorts
are not only larger and better, but hardier and earlier; and the new
forms
have made them more generally available.
Knowledge
on the subject
of gardening is also more widely diffused than ever before, and the
science
of photography, videos, internet etc., has helped wonderfully in
telling
the novice 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
lately, he would have no time left to practice gardening at all.
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Q: Why
then, the reader may
ask at this point, another garden guide or book?
It
is a pertinent question,
and it is right that an answer be expected in advance. The reason is
this:
while there are many garden books on the market, 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. Some other guides or 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. We feel, therefore, that there is a distinct field for the
present
guide.
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Using A Guide Like This
And,
while we still have the
reader on this gardening buttonhole, we want to make a suggestion or
two
about using a guide like this. Do not, on the one hand, read it through
and then put it away in some folder with the old email, and trust your
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.
Bookmark
and read the whole
guide 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 and than print that information.
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. We know from
personal
experience and from the experience of others that "guide-gardening" is
a practical thing. If you do your work carefully and thoroughly, you
may
be confident that a very great measure of success will reward the
efforts
of your first garden season.
And
we know too, that you
will find it the most entrancing game you ever played.
Good luck to you!
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