Woodbine-Arbor or the Little Gardeners: A Story of a Happy Childhood

Gardening > General

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by Anonymous

Let me tell you, my dear young reader, about a happy little family of three brothers and three sisters, who lived in a pleasant home, not far from the great city of New-York. Their father, Mr. Howard, was a wealthy merchant, and had his store in the city, to which he usually rode early in the morning, directly after breakfast, and returned home in season to take tea with his family. He had six children, the little folks whom I am now going to tell you about.

The girls were named Maria, Elizabeth, and Harriet. The boys were Henry, Charles, and John.—Henry was the oldest, then Charles, Maria, John, Elizabeth, and Harriet.

Their home was a beautiful country-seat, situated not far from the East river, with fine old shade trees in front of it. In the rear was a very large garden, laid out with great neatness and taste, and well stocked with fruits and flowers. Then there were walks and borders, and summer-houses, and arbors, and almost every thing which could render it a delightful place.

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Gardening for Little Girls

Gardening > Techniques

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by Olive Hyde Foster

Preface

Children take naturally to gardening, and few occupations count so much for their development,—mental, moral and physical.

Where children's garden clubs and community gardens have been tried, the little folks have shown an aptitude surprising to their elders, and under exactly the same natural, climatic conditions, the children have often obtained astonishingly greater results. Moreover, in the poor districts many a family table, previously unattractive and lacking in nourishment, has been made attractive as well as nutritious, with their fresh green vegetables and flowers.

Ideas of industry and thrift, too, are at the same time inculcated without words, and habits formed that affect their character for life. A well-known New York City Public School superintendent once said to me that she had a flower bed every year in the children's gardens, where a troublesome boy could always be controlled by giving to him the honor of its care and keeping.

The love of nature, whether inborn or acquired, is one of the greatest sources of pleasure, and any scientific knowledge connected with it of inestimable satisfaction. Carlyle's lament was, "Would that some one had taught me in childhood the names of the stars and the grasses."

It is with the hope of helping both mothers and children that this little book has been most lovingly prepared.

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Farming with Dynamite: A Few Hints to Farmers

Gardening > Techniques

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by E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company

What is Dynamite?

Some farmers have a wrong idea about dynamite.

They know it is a powerful explosive, and believe it is dangerous to handle.

Dynamite is very powerful, much more so than gunpowder, but is actually safer to handle.

After more than a hundred years' experience in making and using explosives, we can truthfully state that by following simple directions with ordinary care, anyone can use our "Red Cross" Dynamite without harm.

The purpose of this booklet is to tell you the wonderful value of the use of "Red Cross" Dynamite on the farm.

If it interests you, as it surely will, and if you are progressive and ambitious, write for a copy of our "Handbook of Explosives for Farmers, Planters and Ranchers," which will be sent free of charge and which tells just how to use "Red Cross" Dynamite safely and easily, and make it the greatest aid to profitable farming.

We will be glad to correspond with you about any special requirements of your farm, or give you any information you want. Write our nearest office (see last page) and your letter will receive prompt, personal attention.

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American Grape Training: An account of the leading forms now in use of Training the American Grapes

Gardening > Fruit

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by Liberty Hyde Bailey

THIS LITTLE book has grown out of an attempt to teach the principles and methods of grape training to college students. I have found such teaching to be exceedingly difficult and unsatisfactory. It is impossible to firmly impress the lessons by mere lectures. The student must apprehend the principles slowly and by his own effort. He must have time to thoroughly assimilate them before he attempts to apply them. I therefore cast about for books which I could put before my class, but I at once found that there are very few succinct accounts of the subjects of grape pruning and training, and that none of our books portray the methods which are most largely practised in the large grape regions of the east. My only recourse, therefore, was to put my own notes into shape for print, and this I have now done. And inasmuch as all grape-growers are students, I hope that the simple account will find a use beyond the classroom.

This lack of adequate accounts of grape training at first astonished me, but is not strange after all. It must be remembered that the cultivation of the native grape is of very recent origin. There are many men who can remember its beginning in a commercial way. It seldom occurs to the younger generation, which is familiar with the great vineyards in many states, that the Concord is yet scarcely forty years old, and that all grape growing in eastern America is yet in an experimental stage. Progress has been so rapid in recent years that the new methods outstrip the books. The old horizontal arm spur system, which is still the chief method in the books, has evolved itself into a high renewal training, which is widely used but which has not found its way into the manuals. The Kniffin type has outgrown its long period of incubation, and is now taking an assured place in vineyard management. So two great types, opposed in method, are now contending for supremacy, and they will probably form the basis of all future developments. This evolution of American grape training is one of the most unique and signal developments of our modern horticulture, and its very recent departure from the early doubts and trials is a fresh illustration of the youth and virility of all horticultural pursuits in North America.

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A Year in a Lancashire Garden: Second Edition

Gardening > General

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by Henry Arthur Bright

PREFACE.

This volume is but a collection of Notes, which, at the request of the editor, I wrote, month by month, in 1874, for the columns of the Gardeners' Chronicle.

They pretend to little technical knowledge, and are, I fear, of but little horticultural value. They contain only some slight record of a year's work in a garden, and of those associations which a garden is so certain to call up.

As, however, I found that this monthly record gave pleasure to readers, to whom both the garden and its owner were quite unknown, I printed off some fifty copies to give to those, whom I have the happiness to number among my friends, and for whom a garden has the same interest that it has for me.

Four years have passed since then, and I am still asked for copies which I cannot give.

I have at last, rather reluctantly, for there seems to me something private and personal about the whole affair, resolved to reprint these notes, and see if this little book can win for itself new friends on its own account.

One difficulty, I feel, is that I am describing what happened five years ago. But this I cannot help. To touch or alter would be to spoil the truthfulness of all. The notes must stand absolutely as they were written. But after all, I believe, the difficulty is only an apparent one. The seasons, indeed, may vary—a spring may be later, a summer may be warmer, an autumn may be more fruitful,—but the seasons themselves remain. The same flowers come up each year, the same associations link themselves on to the returning flowers, and the verses of the great poets are unchanged. The details of a garden will alter, but its general effect and aspect are the same.

Nevertheless, something has been learnt, and something remembered, since these notes were written, and this, also communicated from time to time to the Gardeners' Chronicle, I have condensed into a supplementary chapter.

If, as I have heard from a friendly critic, there is too much couleur de rose in my descriptions, I am tempted to retort that this is a colour not perhaps altogether inappropriate to my subject; but, be this as it may, I have described nothing but as it really appeared to me, and I have only wished that others should receive the same impressions as myself.

For my very open egotism I make no apology; it was a necessity of the plan on which I wrote.

I have added notes on the Roman Viola, and on the Sunflower of the Classics, and have given some extracts respecting the Solanum and the fly-catching Azalea. I have also reprinted, by the editor's kind permission, part of an article of mine that appeared in the Athenæum on "Flowers and the Poets."

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