July 1- Summer sun beats mercilessly down on city pavements. Shops, stores and offices are insufferably hot and stifling. There is smoke, sweat, grime, clothes clammy, mind distracted.

Roar of elevated trains, harsh clanking of street cars, endless clacking of typewriters, banging of

elevator doors, raucous voices of dirty youngsters rending the air with "Extray —all about the murder trial," ceaseless blare and hum of never-ending traffic, restless tu­mult and hurry of crowds on the sidewalk, the nervous dash to and from the commuter special—what a period of insanity is July to folks who do the work of the cities.

In such a time it is that the garden and the [ 269 ]

home lawn mean most. It's a place of quiet and peace, where one can wear old clothes, re­lax and forget. Often I have to travel to big cities in summer but always I hurry back to our place out in the country.

July is the month, too, that determines whether we are real gardeners or just flashes in the pan. The flash is one who gets the fever in spring, when air is balmy, things are turn­ing green, spring flowers are blooming—and rushes out with great activity to do a lot of digging, sow a lot of seed, buy a lot of plants from the nursery; then when the hot days of July come on, sits back in the shade and forgets the garden while the weeds grow up in the bor­der and seed frame and the shrubbery droops for lack of care.

The good gardener knows that there is plenty of work ahead in July. Things must be kept cultivated and if needed, watering done judiciously. Faded flowers of gaillardia, core­opsis, violas, delphiniums and other things need to be picked off, stragglers trimmed, fertilizer given the chrysanthemums.

• •              •

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Now isn't that a pretty bit of writing? When I write something clever like that in this Olde Booke, I always do what Prof. Denny used to say that Henry James did—put invis­ible exclamation points at the end of my sen­tences in admiration of my cleverness.

Actually, the ground is wet today and I've been transplanting seedlings  from the  seed frame.    But what to do with the tiny little rock plants is a question.   The book says they must be transplanted.    I've decided that I'll first put them in 2-inch pots, sink the pots in peat in a frame and let them get a good growth before I put them out into propagating beds. If I moved them right from the seed frames, I fear they would never survive.

July 3. Spading, like the poor, we have always with us, especially in a newer garden like mine, where there is so much yet to be put into permanent shape. As I was doing it this after­noon there came visitors—to wit, Walter Bur-well and Bert Kleinmaier, my nurserymen friends. I have been buying plants from them so long that they wanted to see what I've done

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with all of them, I guess. I was ashamed the place was so weedy—but then, nurserymen have weeds, too, this time of year.

July 4. I always work on this day—for that's one thing that J. Hancock and T. Jef­ferson didn't free me from. By afternoon l| had a good-sized bed spaded up, with well-rot­ted manure turned under, well raked and even some plant food—a 4-12-4 analysis—gently raked in, ready for the rain that the weather­man promises.

Then friends came and we repaired to our bit of wooded ravine for a watermelon picnic. I always like our ravine on July 4, for there's a wild lychnis growing there that has red flow­ers on it that look like firecrackers. As dark­ness came, there were fireworks of an elemen­tary sort on the lawn for the youngsters.

That little ravine at the back of our place, through which the little stream runs that Don­ald used to call his "little ribber," though it is about dry just now, is a great delight. Really, it was the biggest reason why we bought this particular place. Both Maggie and I have

always been great hands for picnics. In my time I have picnicked from the Welsh Hills in Pennsylvania to along the Cimarron in Okla­homa, not forgetting the North Woods in Ames, Iowa.

Once, when we lived in town, before the boys were born, Maggie and I set out one Sun­day morning to find a place where we could picnic in peace. We drove at least 60 miles down east of Chillicothe before we found it— and we weren't more than half through with our lunch when some of the natives there­abouts came along and sat down with us. But now, we have our own picnic place, under our very own oak trees.

July 5. As predicted last night, it did rain and this morning it was too wet. But this afternoon I went to work to transplant tufted pansies that I had potted up several weeks ago. They are fine, thrifty little plants now.

When I transplant, I kneel on a board and plant along the side of it. This keeps me from tramping down the damp soil and—queer for ^an Irishman—the rows are straight. Now I'll

cultivate these violas and other things all sum­mer and by fall they will be good clumps, ready to go into rock garden or front of bor­der. You know, you have to grow good plants if you expect to have good bloom later. The fairies won't do it for you—either you do it yourself or buy them from a nursery.

July 7. Last evening we drove over to Green­ville to visit the folks. I had to sleep with Donald last night and I slept poorly. In sliding over that transplanting board I injured my knee somehow and it was sore and ached all night.

This morning I planted into Mother's perenial border a number of plants I had brought along that will still bloom later this year—in­cluding some of the dwarf blue Carpathian harebell or Campanula carpatica. These are great for the front of a border or to tuck in here and there in the rock garden. Mother K. even had a long edging of them alone that was most colorful. They can stand some shade, too. They'll bloom from along in July till fall.

July 8. Rain—hard rain—this afternoon, thank goodness. First, I weeded at the seed frame thereafter. This is the most tedious job of all the chores of a dirt gardener—except possibly lawn mowing. If only I could get Maggie to do it. But she says she will, when the boys get old enough so they won't have to be looked after. I'd keep a cow, if only she'd milk it.

Then I transplanted my saponaria seedlings. Now I like Saponaria ocymoides splendem, with its wealth of pink blooms in May over its large clumps of vines, just after the pink phlox is gone. I grew three plants last year. This year I planted two packets of seed and I have a fine lot of seedlings. If I can grow them, I'll have pink all over the place next May.

July 9. Work today included transplanting from pots the Viola Jersey Gem that I had potted up. They made good growth in the pots. They made a fine, big bed, set out in the garden. Tonight I was so tired. I get tired

so easily this summer. I wonder if I am get­ting old.

July11. Before breakfast I sat on my box stool and weeded. After, the whole family set out to visit the garden of Mrs. Conklin just south of Delaware and a fine garden we found. She has a rock garden on a slope, a pool with running water supplied from the milk tank in the barn, for she lives on a farm though Mr. Conklin is a banker in town. There is a perennial border, all sorts of shrub­bery, evergreens, roses and whatnot.

I was especially interested in the way she was prolonging the color in the rock garden, for these days color is likely to be scarce in such. Portulaca had been sown among the rocks of the walks. The white annual sweet alyssum had been transplanted into spots that would now be barren otherwise. Some pe­tunias had been planted in front of the later blooming Sedutn spectabile. Some soft pur­ple verbena, some dwarf ageratum and a good bit of the blue dwarf annual lobelia had been used here and there.

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And you should see the rhododendrons on the north side of the house, four feet high or more, sturdy and thrifty, yet only four years in this place. First, the space was especially prepared by digging out the earth and filling it in with acid soil brought in from under oak trees in the woods. Then in the fall be­fore the mulch of leaves is put on, the soil gets a sprinkling of aluminum sulphate and again in the spring. This increases the acid­ity. Often Mrs. Conklin pours clabber milk around the roots, for this, too, is acid.

This afternoon Donald and I visited five gardens and I asked each of the five women why they garden. One said she liked to gar­den. A second finds pleasure in propagating things and making them grow. A third con­fessed to a love of nature that had been mani­fest ever since she was a small girl. A fourth had taken to gardening to regain her health and as a means of staying outdoors.

But the fifth woman gave me the best rea­son of all. She is a spotless housekeeper. She is an ideal mother and her children are being given an ideal rearing. She is keen-minded,

resourceful and has a vivid personality— whole-souled and the salt of the earth.

"I garden because it gets me out of the house and away from everything in it," she replied. "There come times when I just can't stand it in the house any longer. I want to get away from it and its vexations and forget what's inside. Out here in the garden is where I can completely forget as I do some­thing entirely different."

This woman puts her soul into whatever she does. Indoors, she runs her house well, but it is a nervous strain that wears her down. But outdoors, she gardens with the same never-ending enthusiasm and eager search and she works just as hard at it as she does in her kitchen. The one is a foil to the other. She does both well, in consequence.

Home, I gave the border a boyish bob— cutting off the tops of a lot of things that have bloomed. Some will bloom again as new growth comes out.

July 18. I'm on a business trip and garden visits will come along with it. This afternoon

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I stopped at a farm house east of Pendleton, Indiana, that had been landscaped by the vo­cational agriculture class of the high school several years before. Today there is shrubbery all around. The hydrangeas were in bloom and I never saw finer. You know, the farmer has a fine chance to have good things—he has so much old-fashioned fertility right at hand and knows just how to use it.

July 19. This morning I stopped at the Hobbs nursery at Bridgeport, Indiana, one of the finest in that state, and wandered for an hour looking at the perennials and evergreens. I gazed with longing at the large bed of trol-lius. If only I could grow this gorgeous yel­low globe flower like this nursery can—but I have never done it yet. Mine pass out.

July 21. On this hot sunny Sunday after­noon, as I drove my half-brother-to-a-flivver into the town of Morton, Illinois, on my way from Bloomington to Peoria, I noticed flowers m every yard—front yard, back yard, along drives, everywhere. I saw a man standing on

the sidewalk, so I stopped and asked him why all the flowers.

"Why, well, stranger," he answered, "you see, about all of us own our own homes in this town and we like to have them good looking. I don't know any other reason."

"Tell me," I said, "who is the best gardener in town?"

"Mrs. Hattie Mathis," he replied. "She lives in that white house around the corner and down the street at the next corner."

And thus I was led to stop and visit with one of the best gardeners it has ever been my pleasure to meet. On her generous-sized lot she has a fine collection of shrubs, including some unusually good viburnums, perennial beds and borders, a pool with water plants therein and some rock plants and other things as edging. There are irises and peonies. She had absolutely the best small space vegetable garden I ever saw.

There must be magic in the fingers of Mrs. Mathis, for she is a master at propagation. I'd give anything to grow Oriental poppies as she was growing them—they grow like weeds for

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her. The delphiniums were unusually fine, too.

There was nothing formal or stilted about the place. Things were just here and there in home-like artistic informality. The garden is a growing one, too. The pool had just been put in a few weeks before, on the birthday of June, aged 11, the baby of the household, as a sort of birthday present for her. And June, too, showed me her own little flower border and her own vegetable garden. Plans were being made for a rock garden.

There is a plate glass in the south window of the living-room and somehow this is typical of Mrs. Mathis. As the light comes in—that she may better grow house plants in the win­ter—so her personality shines out. Her en­thusiasm for flowers has been a big factor in setting her neighbors to growing them and beautifying their places. Plants, slips and seeds have gone from her garden all over town. Like all true gardeners, she is happiest when she is giving.

I knocked at the Mathis door as a stranger. Half an hour later I left, feeling that Mrs.

 

Mathis and her children were old friends of mine. That's what the garden spirit does to folks—makes them acquainted, in a kindred bond.

July 26. Back home again and out to survey the garden, I see that a lot of things have died while I was gone, especially a lot of those in pots, which didn't get watered enough. Some of my precious Viola Jersey Gems are dead, too. Such is life, when one has to leave home to earn the family living. Anyhow, the fam­ily was all right—and that's a lot more im­portant. I spent the day getting things in order.

There are two sedums that have been in bloom, both yellow, that I like. One is re-flexum, with rather spiny leaves, and the other is kamchaticum. I like the rather formal clump into which this grows. It doesn't spread nor sprawl like so many of the sedums. It is a flower, not a weed.

Then there is my strawberry bed. I planted it in ground that had been sod turned under. The grass has always kept just one jump ahead

of me and the bed has never done like the strawberries used to do, when we grew them by the acre down on the farm in Slabhollow. I've always been ashamed every time Dad came and saw those berries. Besides, I just plain neglect it. So with callous disregard, I waded into the bed with the hoe, hoed it off and began spading the ground, for I'll want it for other things.

July 31. One can't write a lot about the daily chores one does these days. But never­theless, it is the working away when the sun is hot, keeping after weeds, cutting off seed pods, cuttings back things that have bloomed, that keeps the garden going.

And lately there has been much seed to gather and store away. I have to keep watch on Maggie to see she doesn't throw away any baking powder cans, mustard jars or sich that can be used for seeds. I buy coffee according to whichever can will be best for seed saving.

To some folks, gardening is going about in an organdy dress, cutting flowers for bouquets or showing visitors around or having tea

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outdoors. But to me, gardening means un­derstanding plants, knowing soil conditions, planting, weeding, hoeing, pruning. I like to make things grow. That's real dirt garden-

ing.

The month is over—selah!

 

 

August1. Each summer I like to get away— up north in Michigan or Ontario, where the pine trees and the birches grow and where the streams run dark and where the bass can be found. Remember, Olde Booke, that evening just after Maggie and I had made camp, when the old Indian came along in a canoe who told me what bait to use and where to cast? I followed his suggestions—and in 20 minutes had two bass hooked. Ah, me—I fear there will be no such trip this year!

Maggie dragged me away from my hoeing and digging for a trip downtown this morn­ing and before I knew it, I was mesmerized into agreeing and we have bought new furni­ture for the guest room. I suppose I'll have

 

to take my vacation sleeping in the walnut Jenny Lind guest bed instead of on a bedroll in a tent along Gull River. Or maybe I can put the tent up in the back yard. Thus I pon­dered as I went forth this afternoon to keep up my more or less futile endeavor to lick the weeds.

August 3. Garden work—gosh—is so mo­notonous these days that writing about it be just the same thing over and over. Anyhow, my late planted vegetables have come on and we're eating our own beans and tomatoes and sich. But instead of telling about 'em, I'll just take time out and be a philosopher for a paragraph or two.

Why is it that the whole country, men, women and even the children, have taken to this gardening business? Why have 'steen million folks moved out nearer the country? Why do a million and a quarter or a half copies of a magazine like Better Homes and Gardens have to be printed each month for folks who ten years ago got along very well without it? Why all the other garden maga

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zines? Why all the garden articles in all kinds of magazines?

Well, it's all because of what Robert Brown­ing, the poet, calls our two soul-sides—one to face the world with; the other, to change the poet's idea a bit, to face our home and fam­ily. One soul for business, for the strife of earning a living; another soul-side we have that loves peace and happiness and, too, that craves for something spiritual and beautiful, a desire to create something that is lovely. In the garden quiet, this other soul-side finds its outlet. We are just discovering this, a lot of us.

I keep thinking of a friend who lives in the East who for years has been an important executive in a large business organization. I've watched him more than once, sitting at his desk during the day with telephones at his elbow, buttons at his finger tips to press, un­derlings to hasten at his call and hand him this or that. Men are working for him in a hun­dred cities, for he commands a nation-wide force and keeps close tab on them.

He works hard and fast and is under a

nervous strain all day long. There are im­portant decisions to be made, visitors to see, letters written, telegrams and long-distance! calls every little while, conferences with other executives of the firm. The success of the whole of this great business depends really upon this one man. If he fails, it all fails.

What do you suppose this man does when he goes home at night?   Well, instead of liv­ing in some apartment high above the street, with a doormat for an estate, he lives where what the ragtime song of a generation ago called "Over on the Jersey side."    I visited him one time and I found him out in the gar­den, dressed in old clothes, an old briar pipe in his mouth with a tobacco pouch handy. In his hands was a knife.    He was dividing dahlia tubers  and  getting  them ready  for planting.    He told me he had 500 varieties. That visit was a turning point in my life.] First, I bought a tobacco pouch like the one he had—and it's in my pocket still when I gc out to work with my cob pipe.    Second, it gave me the idea of some day living away from the city—and now ten years later, I'm

 

doing it. Third, when I built my house in the country I planned it to have a center hall­way clear through, and an outside opening from the basement so I could go in and out in muddy feet—just like his house.

August 12. This afternoon I packed my grip, changed the oil in the car and set out on a business trip. Less than a mile from home, while attempting to pass a highway truck making some road repairs, I ran against the side of said truck, tore off my hub cap, twisted the front axle—and though the ,old car wab­bled a bit, I kept right on.

August 13. A few years ago, Louis Tangeman, who is known afar for his prize dairy cows, built a new house on his farm a few miles out from Wapakoneta, Ohio. And house built, Mrs. Tangeman got the idea in her head that it would be a fine thing to plant shrubbery around it and dress up the lawn and the place generally with shrubs and flowers. But she didn't know how to go about it. So ⁿext time she was in town, she asked Dave

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Herman, who was then the county agricul­tural agent. Herman told her that there was a man down at the state university who would

help.

So that fall Herman brought out Vic Ries, this university extension man, who made a simple landscape plan. Louis, whose pride was his dairy cows, didn't think so much of it, but next spring he bought the shrubs and planted them.

This morning, with friend Utz, the present county agent, I went out to visit the Tangeman home. The shrubbery had been given good care. Flowers had been planted. The lawn had been given good treatment, too— and I saw a lovely farm home. And the funny thing—Louis, the dairy farmer, is just as proud of it all now as is his wife.

Then Utz and I drove on down the road to the farm of Ben Huckeride. This house lies back from the road, down a lane, framed in by large trees. Ries had been here too—and now a curved drive has been put in, a hedge planted to divide the wide lawn from the barnyard, arbors built, a flower garden [ 290 ]

planted. In less than two years since this was done, it has become a veritable beauty spot. No rich man ever had a more beautiful home than this Ohio farm house.

This afternoon I drove on to Lima and there I was on the program of the Lima Gar­den Club. Imagine—a Plain Dirt Gardener whose proper station in life is digging weeds in overalls—facing about 60 women with nary another man in sight and telling them things. I don't know whether these enthu­siastic gardeners received much benefit from what I told them but as for me, I learned a great lesson. No matter what the subject is upon which you talk, the listeners, when you are through, are going to ask you questions about everything under the sun. Brother, if you ever expect to speak to a garden club, come prepared with the garden encyclopedia at your tongue tip.

August 14. It was bright and chilly in Michi­gan this morning as I sallied forth from the Hayes Hotel in Jackson and set out to visit once again the famed Wolcott nursery, home

of rock plants. I found Mrs. Wolcott sitting on a box in the nursery, handing plants of some campanula to a boy who was planting them in a bed. As they kept on working, I talked with her for about an hour about rock plants. Mrs. Wolcott probably knows as much about them as anybody in America. Then I went on—and found a story to tell.

Jay Kilpatrick and his good wife live on a farm in Jackson County. Their house is down a side road and the lane to it lies through a huckleberry swamp. The house is a cottage that stands on the side of a hill overlooking the valley and the forests beyond. Here for twenty years the Kilpatricks lived. In all those years Mrs. Kilpatrick has been growing flowers and some shrubs. She loves holly­hocks and through the years has developed a strain of perfectly black ones—velvety black, the like of which you can never find in a seed catalogue.

In all those 20 years Mrs. Kilpatrick dreamed of how sometime she would like to have the place really landscaped and made more beautiful. She read the garden maga-

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zines and kept on dreaming. Then one day she looked out and saw a car drive in. It was Roy Decker, then county agent and with him was a stranger who was introduced as O. I. Gregg, extension landscape man from Michi­gan State College—and in that hour her whole life outlook was changed.

Gregg was looking for a farm home where he might make a demonstration landscape planting that could be used as a model to show other farmers of the community. His prac­ticed eye caught at once the possibilities of this natural setting. "Well, he went to work, made the plan, showed how to do the plant­ing. Because Mrs. Kilpatrick wanted a rock garden so badly, he even came down on a holiday and built it for her himself, on the hillside.

It was this farm home that I found this morning. The old fences are gone and the lawn is a broad sweep of grass down the hill. Ancient apple trees in front have been cleared away to make a vista to the forests beyond. Shrubs have been planted around the house and massed at various places on the lawn and

as a screen for the utility farm buildings. A new porch has been built on the lawn and the house repainted.

The dream of 20 years has come true for this good farm wife. May the dreams of many another come true in the same way.

This afternoon at East Lansing, I sat in the living-room at the home of this man Gregg, apostle of home beautification, and listened to him tell the story of how for several years now he has gone up and down Michigan, preaching the gospel of shrubs and trees and flowers and showing folks how to use them. I wish I could take space here to tell all about it.

Then toward evening I hurried out to the Cottage Gardens Nursery, here at Lansing, of which I had long heard but never seen before. Peonies, iris, chrysanthemums, all kinds of shrubbery and evergreens I saw. There is something about a nursery that always fas­cinates me.

August 15. Much traveling, hard and fast, with my front wheels wobbling from that

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twisted axle and the front tires wearing off fast in consequence, brought me by afternoon to Mentor, Ohio, off east of Cleveland and to the famous Wayside Gardens, from where so many of my fine perennials and rock plants have come. A few years ago this was just a little nursery of maybe 20 acres. Today it is, I suppose, the largest perennial nursery in America.

I wandered over it in a daze and wondered why my plants that I'm trying, pathetically, to grow at home don't grow like they do here. Such delphiniums as the English hybrids I never saw before. In a frame I spied, too, the most wonderful sempervivum I ever saw in my life. The label read Sempervivum atro-violaceum and it was large and purplish col­ored. It is not yet on sale, but when it is, I aim to do some buying.

August 16. Last night I stayed at Painesville, which is one of the nursery centers of Amer­ica. Today I visited farms that were land­scaped, stopped at the agricultural experiment station at Wooster to take a look at the gar-

dens and on home from a wonderful trip, my' notebook filled with material for an article, my memory filled with visions that will re­main for many a day.

August 18. Another time when I wish I had a red ribbon on my typewriter, for it would come handy this day. As we sat at our Sun­day dinner, baby David was crawling around over the floor in the living-room. I went in to see how he was getting along and just for fun I stood him up and took away my hands. Dear me, bless my soul, if the little fellow didn't take a step, another step—and he kept right on stepping, slowly, with many a wob­ble, but steadfastly stepping until he had walked into the dining-room to a most aston­ished family. And he's been walking the rest of the day. This afternoon, as we sat on the shady side of the house that slowly will de­velop into our outdoor living-room, he tot­tered all over the lawn. I took pictures of him in the process, as proof. We don't have a baby any longer, but another boy.

August 24. The Worthington Garden Club _nad a flower show today and the three hon­orary—non-dues paying—members, to wit, neighbor Albaugh, neighbor Russell and my­self, were the judges. It was hard work but a lot of fun too. One of the winners was a young girl to whom last spring I had given some plants to encourage her. We didn't know, of course, whose exhibits we were judging.

One of the exhibits, which after the show opened caused a lot of comment and attracted much attention, was a vase of pure white flowers of silky fringed texture and three or four inches across. Few people knew what they were. They were Centaurea imperalis or royal sweet sultan, an aristocratic cousin of the common corn flower or ragged robin. They are hardy annuals, grow readily from seed to a height of three to four feet, bloom all summer and can be had in a half-dozen colors. The other year a friend brought me some seed of what he described as a wonderful flower and asked me to grow them to see what !t was. This was his flower.

Looking over the show, after we had fin­ished the judging, I saw no rock garden.¹' There ought to be a rock garden. Whoever heard of a flower show without one? So I hurried home and in two hours' time, Donald and I had dug up a collection of rock plants, potted them up, watered them well, filled a box with damp peat moss, taken them down to the show and had built a rock garden in a corner. It was tiny, but there it was. And time well spent, for 500 people had signed the register at our little show by the time it had closed tonight.

August 25. Friend Kleinmaier, the nursery­man, is to be married in a day or two and friend Hottes, the garden editor of Better Homes and Gardens, is back here for a visit and to attend the wedding. "Walter Engle, the wholesale florist, gave a party for Hottes at his home this afternoon and Donald and I went. There was a large crowd of garden folks there and a picnic supper on the lawn. We hadn't taken any lunch but Mrs. Thomas invited us to eat with the Thomas family.

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August 26. This morning I was all astew. You see, Hottes was coming out to have lunch with us. Now, when Hottes was just a brother college professor on the same faculty with me, I wouldn't give two whoops about his coming. But now, he's the garden editor of Better Homes and Gardens and the chap who passes on the things I write for this maga­zine. And if he'd find my place all weedy and run-down like, maybe he'd think my arti­cles were the same way. So Donald and I worked like mad to get things shipshape as possible. We finished cleaning the weeds out of the shrub border, weeded the rock garden and the like.

August 30. State fair is on and I've been out two days. I had business around the livestock pavilions that had to do with some writing about the fair for a farm paper. But every time I could, I'd slip away to the horticultural building. There be long tables filled with dahlias and glads that I ponder over. Nur­serymen and growers have booths and I stop to get acquainted. Friend Wyant, the rose

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grower, has a booth, too, with an exhibit and an order book. All these chaps have order books. I could have spent a hundred dollars —but I didn't.

August 31.    Now, ever since my dwarf iris bloomed so beautifully last spring, these pleas­ant little fellows have been on my mind.   So after much pondering and figuring, I sent away two orders the other day for about a dozen more varieties.   The first of these came today and with much eclat I made a bed and planted them.   If I were king, every gardener would have   a  collection  of   dwarf,   early-blooming iris—for what can take their place

in the spring?

And did I tell you about my campanulas? For years and years I have been trying to grow campanulas from seed.   One year I made nine different sowings and was able to get only two plants to bloom.   But this year, with sand and peat moss mixed in the seed frame, glory be, I have grown seedlings of Campanula tur-binata by the hundreds.   This is a cousin of the Carpathian harebell, so much like it that it [ 300]

would take a botanist to tell the difference. Tin worrying now about getting them through _the winter. I'll put some in pots some are already transplanted into a bed and some 111 leave right here in the seed frame.

Month gone-and gosh, what a dull read-in, this Olde Booke would be if I had written down every ache, every sweat every weed pulled, every row hoed-for brother, I’ve been busy, even though I haven't written about all of it.

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September 1929

 

September1 tis is or can be the pleasant month, if gentle rains come that penetrate the earth, so that weeds may be pulled a ground stirred. Grass takes on a fresher tint after its summer slumber. Transplanted seed­lings begin to spurt. Gaillardia, coreopsis," delphinium, violas and other things take a new lease on life. The biggest worry, right now, is whether or not the sophomore fullback at the think factory can punt.

September 2. I always like to see Labor Day come, for under the stimulus of it, I always labor all day long, instead of fishing or play­ing golf as some men do. You know, I'm of the opinion, anyhow, that no man has any

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business to play golf unless he is past 60 and a llionaire—that is, if he owns a place of his own. The country club that touches our place at the back belongs to a lodge in which I am a member, so I'm ex-officio a member of the club, too. But thank goodness, I don't have to pay the golf dues unless I play. In the time we have lived here, I think I've stood on those greens just once—and that was to consult the greenskeeper about something.

The main chore today was cleaning out the weeds from among the shrubbery again. I've hoed that shrubbery all summer and every time my back is turned, the durned weeds are up again, higher than the shrubs. But com­pany is coming next Sunday and the place has to be spick and span.

Then there's that Scotch pine that we used for a live Christmas tree last Christmas and planted out with much ceremony. Well, when I took it out of the tub to plant it, most of the dirt fell off the roots. Consequently, that pine has languished ever since and at last it gave up the ghost. I took out its remains [303]

 and toted it back to the scrap pile to burn, also took out a lilac that had died.

You know, in the garden books and magazine articles and nursery catalogs  nothing ever dies.  

But in the garden of a Plain Dirt Gardener, who doesn't know all there is to know about planting and growing by a long shot, and who has a lot of other things that have to be done just when plants ought to be taken care of—well, some just naturally up and die every so often.    There's no use to worry about it.    Just begin again, that's all, and trust for luck next time.

September 3. That long perennial border by the drive is in a divil of a shape, I found, when I took a close inspection of it today and tried to view it as visitors will see it Sunday. I well nigh ruined it by cutting back so many things last month, too. So today I began renovating it.

First, however, I went over it for seedlings. 5 I  found that a good many perennials had seeded themselves.   Little plants of coreopsis, columbines, pyrethrums, feverfew and other

things were nestled here and yon. These I dug and transplanted back into a nursery bed to grow on. Then I waded in with trowel and hoe, to give the whole bed a thorough going over.

September 6. Last night there was a hard rain, so today I was out transplanting seed­lings from my seed frames. Things put out now will make a fine growth this fall.

September 7. I'm getting a cold and am sick —but guests are coming tomorrow. So be­tween showers, I mowed the lawn. You know, if the lawn looks well, people will think your place looks fine, whether it does or not. The lawn is the most important single element in the home landscape. It just can't be neglected. Mine has come on fairly well, though by no means what I'd like to see it.

Gosh, if only I'd had the money to hire a good landscape man to take charge and make me a real lawn when we first moved in. In­stead, I've just kept part of the original pas­ture field. The new part around the house I

 

had disked up by a man with a team, then with my two arms and a rake, I worked it up, raked it to the proper grade and seeded it by  > hand.    The ground needs humus.    The sur-face has bumps and it has holes.    The seed I bought for sun exposure had a lot of fescue i it, which does best in shade—and is divilish; tough to mow.   Now for years I'll labor away trying to get it in shape.

September 8.   On this day we had our guests. It was, forsooth, a reunion of the Pi Kappa Alpha boys who were in the university with me—now chaps getting on toward middle age, like I am.    They came, with their families. We had planned to have a picnic out in our I wooded ravine.    But the vanguard had just * gone out and had a fire built in the little fire­place where the steak and wieners were to cooked, when it began to drizzle rain.    And drizzle it did all day long.

Result—we had the picnic in the house.

There were  34  of us in all,  counting  the

youngsters—and a houseful it made.   But we

had a lot of excitement.    And the fellows

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made fun of me because I had bought twice as much food as we needed—especially too many potato chips. As Carroll Stubbs left, he had the nerve to call out, "Well, Harry, come and potato chip with us sometime."

And all day long I was so sick that I hardly knew what I was doing. After all had gone, I went to town to see a doctor—but couldn't find him.

September 9. There was not only a cold in my head this morning—there was one in the air—and so I built a fire in the furnace and one in my fireplace study and tried to get some work done at my desk. I couldn't seem to make the old bean function under the handicap, so I crawled out to the garden and between sneezes and nose blowing, I slowly did some hoeing.

September 14. As I was a-working outdoors, in drove my folks for a visit and their coming was like unto the arrival of Santa Claus. They always bring candy and fruit and toys and whatnot for the boys and it's a great event.

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September 16. In scouting around at nur­series this summer I noticed that sometimes choice plants are kept through the first winter by planting them in frames. So after much cogitating, I've decided to build me a special frame and try it out.

I built the frame today, spaded it up, dumped in several loads of soil to raise the level inside for drainage, added some sand and peat moss to make it friable and porous and then went to work transplanting things into it, especially the fine seedlings of bunch prim­roses that I've grown in the seed frame this summer and the first real success I ever had with these.

September 19. There's another failure to be chalked up and it might as well be here. I've been such a nut on potting up seedlings that I went wild on it this past summer. Along in July I even potted up some seedling delphin­iums. "Well, it didn't work, though I don't know why. Most of them just up and died. What was left, I set out in a bed today, sad­der but I don't know that I'm much wiser.

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Maybe it was because the pots were new— which is sometimes bad on things—maybe it was because I used too much plant food in the soil mixture; maybe it was because I didn't take care of them right.

And, by the way, the first frost of the sea­son arrived this morning, though it didn't do much harm.

September 20. Come, my friends, and rejoice with me at true beauty. Out there in the garden is that bed filled with Viola Jersey Gem, all covered with lovely purple bloom, the finest bed of violas I ever saw—and I grew them myself from the divisions I made along early in the summer, potted up, then set out in this same bed. I gave them a touch of plant food worked in the soil before I planted and I've hoed and weeded with diligence ever since. Now the recent rains have brought out the bloom.

Each night as I watch the sun go down, the darkness comes just a little earlier and earlier. And it makes me feel a bit sad. From the time when the days begin to lengthen along in

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January, up to mid-June, I'm optimistic. The world has a good bit of hope in it. But as soon as the days begin to grow shorter, I begin to acquire pessimism. I love the sunlight, when I can work out. I sit indoors when darkness comes, fretting because of so many things undone.

September 21. The days are here when it's time to transplant in earnest and make beds for next spring's bloom. I have a fine lot of Shirley foxgloves, daisies and whatnot that I've grown in propagation beds and they needs must be reset where they are to bloom. This work can be done any time now that the ground is moist enough. I like to get it done in the fall, instead of waiting until spring.

September 23. There's to be big doings here tomorrow and the place has to shine anew. So I mowed the yard, finished up the border with the hoe until it looks semi-respectable at least, cleaned up the walks through the garden and so on. Then I set out some gaillardias in a bed.

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And in this clean-up, the family wheelbarrow brigade did noble duty.

You see, there are four wheelbarrows around our place, one for each member of the family as it were. The first barrow I owned is an ordinary workingman's one, with a steel bowl. I bought it when I lived in town for hauling coal. Now it does for dirt, stones, sand and rough stuff. When we moved to the country I bought a garden barrow with straight wooden sideboards that can be removed. On this, painted green of course, I haul straw, leaves, weeds and bulky loads.

The third barrow is that one I bought for Donald on his fifth birthday last May. This is in looks somewhat a small edition of the big garden barrow but the body and wheel is of steel. This is much more substantial than the ordinary child's barrow, yet light enough for Donald to handle and still big enough for Maggie to use—when she chooses, which is seldom.

But the one which right now takes the cake is the little red toy barrow, bought for Donald originally. You see, David, only 16

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months old, is picking it up and pushing it as he toddles around. He can even haul a weed or two in it for me.

September 24. This has been a big day, for Maggie's club has been meeting here. She's been getting ready for it for two weeks—-fuss­ing with draperies, cleaning and so on. I stuck around until noon, then as the commit­tee in charge of the eating part of the affair arrived, I cleared out. I beat it down to the think factory, which isn't open but the fac­ulty club is, and so had my lunch there.

Dearie me, this is our wedding anniversary. I thought about it a lot but did little Wereas, eight years ago we ate our first mea together in Zanesville, as we were setting 01 on our honeymoon, tonight we had cole boiled ham in the kitchen, after the club storm had departed, leaving a wake of dirty dishes and chairs to be returned to the undertaker and so on.

September 29. Every day is a busy day, just now, with weeding and hoeing and transplant-

 

ing. But why write about them? Every­body's doin' it—at least all good gardeners.

Why not write instead about the Abelia grandiflora that's in bloom, out in the shrub border? It has been doing the same since July and sometimes continues to put out its whitish-pink blossoms until well toward November. It is farther south a broadleaf evergreen. Here it is likely to lose its leaves and even kills to the ground in winter. But it makes a quick comeback the next summer.

And did I ever write down that I've grown a number of fine little plants of that dwarf Campanula garganica, known to all tried and true rock gardeners? It's the first time I've ever succeeded. If I get them through the winter, they'll be fine for the rock garden next summer.

September 30. One of my ships came home today—or rather one of my dreams. A box of bulbs arrived from Holland for me, with narcissus, tulips and some dwarf species tulips for the rock garden.

As the month ends, I'm hard up—so hard

 

up I don't know how I'll ever meet my bills, let alone pay for those bulbs and no salary check for a month yet.

I was too worried to work at my desk to­night, so I sat downstairs and listened to the radio. It's a nuisance—takes too much time. But over it tonight came a tune that sent my thoughts going back 30 years or more. That tune was "A Bicycle Built for Two." Re­member it, old timers?

"Daisy, Daisy, Give me your answer true, I'm most crazy, All for the love of you. It won't be a stylish marriage, for I can't afford a carriage; But won't you look sweet Upon the seat Of a bicycle built for two!"

 

October 1929

 

October1. This is the month for playing gypsy, for traveling in the car, for hikes and supper campfires in the country. But, ah me —I don't suppose there will be anything much like that for us, this year.

This morning early I was out to mow the yard—that would be quite a journey in itself, if strung out along a highway. But the grass grew tough, so I stopped that and began on something else.

At the rear corner of the lawn is our little rock garden, the first one I built, not counting the one four feet square. There's space for more, so Donald and I began the chore of en­larging it. The other day I had bought a load of stones and had them dumped just on the

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other side of the shrubbery, in that new piece of ground we bought last summer.

So we hauled soil and compost and sand and some peat moss and mixed it all up. Then I set to work to plant the rocks. It really is just a little raised alpine bed, not a rock gar­den at all; just a well-drained, suitable soil, home for rock plants I'd ordered.

And just as I finished, our rural route man turned in our drive. I knew what he had without asking. It was those plants from Borsch and Son of Oregon. I opened them up and went right to work putting them in the home I had ready. There were some rare cam­panulas, some dwarf evergreen pentstemons and so on. Maybe they won't be hardy here, but there's just one way to find out. I'm a good gambler, and I need more plant educa­tion.

October 2. Oh, dear—the old think factory opened up again today and from now on my I time must be regulated by the clock. When, I went down I found 25 smiling faces in my) first class, wondering what sort of a chap I

 

am and what they'll learn from me. Not much, most likely. Now I'll have to wear dressed-up clothes part of the time and get my mind off the garden.

And, oh, dear, once more—I sold my soul today. A landscape man stopped to see me— and he saw that bed of Viola Jersey Gem, all abloom. Would I sell them? How much would I take for them? He is building a rock garden for some rich man and the plans call for a planting of Jersey Gem. None of the nurseries have them, at least not fine plants in bloom such as mine be.

Now what should I do? I'm hard up. I need the money. So with a sinking soul, I dug up all of that fine bed except a few to keep for myself and let him haul them away. It was like selling part of the family. And he went off without even paying me. I wonder if I'll ever get the money.

October 5. Football season once more—first game today—and I was not there to see. Be­ing as poor as Job's turkeys and in debt to the

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church mouse in addition, I just could not afford season tickets this year.

So instead, I went to the garden and tackled the big rock garden.   You see, when I began it last spring I made only about a third of it. I ran out of stones, for one thing, and out of ambish, for another.    But some time since I bought a truckload of flat limestone rocks; from the quarry.   All summer, when I'd have  a chance, I'd haul another barrow load of dirt.

"Weeds had to be pulled first, then sand hauled, more dirt hauled, shale hauled from! the brow of the ravine.   Then began the job of maneuvering the stones—some of them so big they weigh more than I do.    By evening it was practically all finished, even to the seat? for the fairy.   I had moved three tons of stone at least, I'll bet.    And believe me, I-I knew it, too, as I came in for supper.

Now, once upon a time far up on the sidf a mountain in the Alps of Switzerla dwelt a little golden-haired maiden in a tinyf stone cottage. But one day an avalanche came;] crashing down the mountainside and dashed-against the cottage, half tearing it down and|

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partially covering it. Just as it struck, the fairies came and snatched the little maid away and took her to be one of themselves.

Years—oh, many years—went by. The rain and the frosts wore down the debris that had been left. The rock plants blew their seeds into the crevices and they grew until now the whole place is covered each year with bloom.

If you look closely you can see one corner of the stone cottage that still stands about four feet high. The rest of the side was pushed over, but you can still discern, from the lay of the rocks, that they once did form the side of the cottage. On the other side, the debris covers the walls completely. Around one side of the house the old flagstone walk remains that ran from the front, around to the back door.

And right in the center of the little mound, most strangely enough, four stones lodged so that they formed a little seat. And here the golden-haired fairy maid comes on quiet moonlight nights to sit and ponder.

Such was the fairy story in my mind as I

 

labored under the hot sun and placed the rocks and tried to build the place in fancy like my imagined alpine cottage on the Swiss moun­tainside, from whence come so many of my alpine plants.

October 7.   The long perennial border was on deck for more attention today.    I like to get it weeded up in the fall, so it won't take so much time in the spring.   And after weeding j and hoeing, I saw that there are many vacant spots to be filled.   I dug two or three clumps} of things from the propagating beds to set in.  But I stopped.   It is not time yet.   The ground is not wet enough.   It is better to wait until  the fall rains set in.

October 8. The editor of Better Homes and\ Gardens wants some pictures of the place and I hully gee—it isn't fit for picture taking. The I paper would lose all its subscribers, I'll bet, if I some were used. But anyhow, I began clear-1 ing up spots and when I'd have things spickl and span within the angle of the lens, I'd snapl away. I pictured Maggie and the boys andj

[3^0]

 

had them snap me and the tool shed and the compost pile and some plants in the rock gar­den, and then Maggie took a picture of us three men-folks in wheelbarrow brigade for­mation—though it was hard to get David, aged 17 months, to stay put long enough.

October 9. You don't want to hoe shrubbery this late in the fall, the book says. Better lay off in early September. Fall hoeing induces late growth that is tender and likely to get winter-killed. But there's no law against get­ting in among the shrubs and whacking out weeds. So that's what I did today.

October 10. I'm not going to do much plant­ing in the new part of the big rock garden un­til after the ground is well settled by rains. But I see clearly right now that I'll have more plants than I can ever put in it. The idea came to make an alpine bed near by for the surplus. So I up and atted.

I used some smaller rocks left over to stand on edge to hold the soil in, then I filled it with soil, sand and compost to raise the edge above

the surrounding soil for drainage. Now when I get time I'll make another one to bal­ance this, on the other side. Maybe these beds won't be good landscape design but they'll be a good home for plants.

October 11Now the book says to move Oriental poppies in July or August, after they have died down. But I don't often get to do perzactly what the book decrees. Anyhow, when I get old enough, I'm going to write a new book to suit myself. So tonight I moved some that I had grown from seed and put them in the perennial border. These were grown last year and just left in the seed bed until now. Those transplanted at other times all died, pronto.

I stopped to see Florence Covert's garden in Worthington this evening. She has one of the finest gardens around here—rock garden, an herb garden, lots of iris and many kinds of shrubs. You should see her species iris, such as gracilipes, in the spring.

She had been moving her Siberian iris and she gave me some of the blue. I have been]

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wanting this but just never managed to ac­quire it before. Probably spring is the best time to move this, but if I mulch it good, it will be all right. You know, in planting Si­berian iris and also Japanese, you want to set it deep, so that the crown is about two inches below the surface.

October 12. A lot of work done this Satur­day but that which did the world and our place the most good was to clean up the weeds around the seed frames. A little work makes a lot of difference in the looks of this always utilitarian spot. If I were rich, I might have these frames and the propagation beds way off somewhere, so they wouldn't clutter up the home landscape. But I'm not rich.

October 14. A story that a nurseryman friend told me the other day keeps sticking in my mind and it just ought to be embalmed here for safekeeping. You see, some years ago some little rose bushes were distributed as a gift to children in a certain city school. One little girl who received one was the daughter

 

of a wealthy man. Intrinsically the rose was nothing to him or her, for it was worth only a few cents, but—

"That little rose cost me $50,000," said the father to this nurseryman not long ago. "We didn't have any place to plant it except be­tween flagstones in the courtyard of our city home. So to get a suitable place, I bought a whole block of land farther out, built a new house and since you can't landscape with one rose, I had to buy other roses and trees and evergreens and shrubs.

"Why, that rose bush changed our whole life. We never knew how to live before. We used to think we enjoyed life, with parties, theaters and such. Now we know that it was just excitement. The enjoyment comes from working with these living, growing plants."

October 19. Another whole week gone by and another work Saturday here. Now maybe I have never written it down before, but all summer long I've been digging a hole. The turn-around space by the garage needs enlarg­ing and as I've needed dirt for the rock gar-

 

den and for filling in beds, I've dug it from here.

Also all summer long, as I have spaded and hoed, I've kept turning out stones from the soil. These I've piled up here and there. To­day—dry and hot and me with no ambition to work at anything which took brains or atten­tion—I hauled these stones and began filling up that hole. I'll fill in my ashes from the furnace this winter and next spring early finish the job by covering with crushed stone. Thus a poor chap has to resort to expedients to make progress.

October 22. Something happened today worth noting. It rained all day and I did not do a single thing in the garden. Heaven only knows how long it has been since I saw an­other day like this.

October 23. Rain all day and at times there were flecks of snow in the air. It is cold and looks like it might freeze. Winter is coming. But the rain has firmed down the soil in my big new rock garden and it's all ready to plant.

 

So I put on my high-top hunting tootsie covers and wandered out.

I got out the wheelbarrow, dug a load of rock plants from the propagating beds where I've been growing them all summer, and haul­ing them to the rock garden, began to plant. I was careful to set each plant under a rock, where the roots can wander back and find pro­tection. If I can get this all planted this fall, things will be all set snug, ready to begin blooming on schedule next spring.

Then I drained the hose and put it away overhead in the garage for winter. Also I drained the pipe that carries water out to the garden.

October 24. Dead broke—and payday a week off. Home, to get rid of worry, I went ahead to plant more things in the rock garden. How I like to do this planting—standing off and pondering on where I'll put this and that, then digging the hole and packing the dirt tight about the roots so there are no air spaces left.

[326]

 

October 29. I've finished as much of the rock garden planting as I can do this fall. Now I'm at work moving a lot of things into the perennial border. I'm making groups of things—delphiniums, foxgloves, columbines, pyrethrums and the like—that I grew this summer myself, b'gosh.

As I worked, I kept thinking as I always do this time of year that I am an artist who is painting a picture with magic paint. And so I am, though the colors won't show up until next spring and summer. And it's a picture that if I don't like, I can tear up and change into something different.

You know, I've seen a good many famous paintings in my time. But the trees in the Corot landscape never change to any color so gorgeous as ours right this minute back in the ravine. The dancer's foot never touches the ground. That Spanish girl on the landing in the Minneapolis Art Museum that that Span­ish what's-his-name painted—has never taken a step since she was hung there, though it's been more than ten years since I saw her there.

[327]

 

But my picture grows and blooms and sheds fragrance and has seed pods—and weeds.

P.S.—I've  not  been  paid  yet   for   those violas.

 

November 1929

 

November 1. Jack Frost is king and still it rains. If only I could have had some of this rain last summer and earlier in the fall. But it just seems that the weather man never pays any attention to the needs of a PDG.

I've been so busy that I have never planted the bulbs that came some time ago. Today I planted the species tulips in my alpine bed and in the rock gardens.

November 2. Down drizzled the rain but it didn't keep us from going a-visiting. First, the annual fall chrysanthemum show is being held at the university, staged by the floricultural students and commercial growers. So

Donald and I went down this afternoon to see it.

On the way home we stopped at the meet­ing of the Columbus Horticultural Society— which in these latter days is a garden club. The meeting was held in the log cabin that neighbor Albaugh built at the rear of his large garden under the trees. There was a talk on flowers in Alaska and I was surprised to learn how fine the delphiniums grow up there in summer.

Then tonight Maggie and I drove 30 miles to a hard-time Halloween (Is that the way you spell that word?) given by the Mc-Vickers. I went dressed in overalls—none other than my garden overalls—and it was hard times right for me, no joke about it.

November 4. Talk about mum show. "Why, I have one of my own, right back in the gar­den. Even if I didn't get those mums planted until fairly late, they have come on and are doing famously, considering the dry weather and no artificial watering. But how I did

[330]

 

labor to keep the weeds out and cultivate them during the hot summer days.

November 5. Last night the ground froze for the first time and, oh, it sadly tinged those mums. Tonight I sallied forth and did what I should have done weeks ago. I planted the rest of my narcissus bulbs. These really should be planted in September when pos­sible. I put 400 mixed bulbs all along in front of the east shrub border and what a grand show they'll make next spring.

You know, a lot of folks don't have bulb flowers in the spring because they don't have foresight enough to buy and plant them in the fall. You can't always wait until you see something in bloom in your neighbor's garden, then rush out and buy some yourself, like you can a hat or an auto.

November 6. Right now is about the best time in the year to get out weeds. The peren­nials can be plainly seen. The biennials and winter annuals are all up and you spy them as little rosettes here and yon. Get 'em out

[331]

Donald and I went down this afternoon to see it.

On the way home we stopped at the meet­ing of the Columbus Horticultural Society— which in these latter days is a garden club. The meeting was held in the log cabin that neighbor Albaugh built at the rear of his large garden under the trees. There was a talk on flowers in Alaska and I was surprised to learn how fine the delphiniums grow up there in summer.

Then tonight Maggie and I drove 30 miles to a hard-time Halloween (Is that the way you spell that word?) given by the Mc-Vickers. I went dressed in overalls—none other than my garden overalls—and it was hard times right for me, no joke about it.

November 4. Talk about mum show. "Why, I have one of my own, right back in the gar­den. Even if I didn't get those mums planted until fairly late, they have come on and are doing famously, considering the dry weather and no artificial watering. But how I did

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PLAIN  DIRT   GARDENER

labor to keep the weeds out and cultivate them during the hot summer days.

November 5. Last night the ground froze for the first time and, oh, it sadly tinged those mums. Tonight I sallied forth and did what I should have done weeks ago. I planted the rest of my narcissus bulbs. These really should be planted in September when pos­sible. I put 400 mixed bulbs all along in front of the east shrub border and what a grand show they'll make next spring.

You know, a lot of folks don't have bulb flowers in the spring because they don't have foresight enough to buy and plant them in the fall. You can't always wait until you see something in bloom in your neighbor's garden, then rush out and buy some yourself, like you can a hat or an auto.

November 6. Right now is about the best time in the year to get out weeds. The peren­nials can be plainly seen. The biennials and winter annuals are all up and you spy them as little rosettes here and yon. Get 'em out

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I

 

now and they're out for good. So I'm putting in a lot of time doing just that.

November 7. There is such a thing as a miracle left in this world. Here I am so hard up that I don't know what to do. I went to the bank the other day to get out an insur­ance policy, so I can borrow money on it to live. But I put it back again and decided that we'd just have to starve. Then today a check came for some writing work I did some time ago and it was for precisely $160 more than I had expected. When I opened that letter, I just sat, dumfounded.

So this explains why, when I sallied forth today I put on my best clothes and went downtown. I went to the grocery and bought our winter's supply of canned goods, which I like to buy in case lots. I bought a whole pound of my favorite Old English Curve Cut tobacco and a box of Pittsburgh stogies. I even bought a box of candy for Maggie and two new books. Believe me, I whistled when I got back home tonight and tackled the weeds once more. At my desk

[332]

tonight I subscribed anew to the New York Times, which we have been too poor to take for months. And a fellow just can't move in educated circles unless he reads the Times.

November 9. There was a heavy frost last night that just about ruined the mums. This afternoon Maggie and I went to our first foot­ball game of the year; reason being, I man­aged to get some free tickets. I'm a Jonah to the team, for it lost to Northwestern, 18-6. I might have done a lot of work at home and let the team win.

November u. Warm, it has been almost like summer, so after I came back home I donned my garden tuxedo and hied forth. There is still lots of work to do. Then I began looking around at things I need. I'd like arbors for the climbing roses and a lot of hybrid tea roses—for this is the ideal time to plant such. And—dear me—didn't I make out a long list of new peonies I'd like, way last winter? The windows need weather-stripping, too. Gosh!

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November 15.    On this day I received a let­ter that upset my whole little world.    I have, a job of writing to do that will take me away! from home for weeks.    So I have secured a leave of absence from teaching, made arrangements to have someone else take my classes and am full of plans.   Gone are my dreams of the  new roses and peonies.    No, no, that's not' right.    I still have the dreams.    They just won't come true yet.

November 30. Home today in zero weather —after days of travel—and the garden de­serted and forgotten, my thoughts far away on matters that have no concern with flowers or shrubs. But they mean a lot to the future of this household.

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December 1929

 

December1. Today I put my affairs in order and left for Chicago to be gone for several weeks on a trip that will take me thousands of miles on matters having neither to do with campanulas or cutworms. I had to leave my garden frozen up and nary a thing protected. There isn't time to get anything done and heaven only knows what will happen to it. But no matter—the family living has to come before the garden.

But I did snatch one fleeting look at the berried shrubs. On barberries, honeysuckles, viburnums, cotoneasters, Rosa rubrafolia, red chokeberry and others I saw color. Some of it is about gone. Some will stay until spring.

And in the rock garden there is evergreen

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foliage that will brighten things while I am gone. You know, the foolish virgin rock gar­dener is the one who chooses nothing but plants with striking bloom. The Siberian wallflower and the lilac candytuft were gor­geous last summer but they are dead now. But the thymes, some of the dwarf veronicas, the helianthemums and other things have green foliage on them now.

December 2. All day today in Chicago I was busy, but when work was done I hurried over to the LaSalle for the Commercial Peony and Iris Growers' Association was in session. I know a lot of these men. The meeting was over for the day but I found a number of the men still around. I listened to them gossip, mostly about peonies.

December 10. In St. Paul today on my travels and tonight I visited with old friends, Beckman, editor of the Farmer's Wife, and Mrs. Beckman. These be notable gardeners and many a pleasant hour I used to spend in their garden when we all lived in Ames, Iowa.

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December 11. All day I drove over icy roads in the cold of southern Minnesota and in a farm house I saw a fine lot of house plants cared for by a good farm woman. Tonight I visited Maggie's uncle Newton and his family in St. Paul. Maggie hasn't seen them since she was a little girl, some of them she has never seen. We sat by the fireplace and talked gar­dening and family affairs.

December 12. Ah, me, I am 40 years old today. I don't feel it. But that's a long time to live. Every once in a while I keep thinking of how many more years I'll live, how much work I'll get done, what I'll be doing when I'm 50, whether I'll really get all the shrubbery and evergreens planted that I'd like to have. How time flies.

When I awoke this morning I was in the railroad station at Des Moines, and you can just bet that before the day was over I was out at the office of Better Homes and Gardens talking with the editorial folks there. It's a fine place to visit—and several of my old stu-

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dents are there helping to edit the magazines issued by this publishing firm.

December 17. Home from my travels for a day—to find the boys sick, ground covered with ice and snow and the garden frozen and forgotten. And tonight I leave for Michigan.

December 24.    Back home again.    Tonight at

 the  Worthington  Garden  Club,   of   which

Mother K. is president, planted an evergreen

Christmas tree on the village common.    We

gathered round in the snow, sang carols and

had a fine community time.   You know, this

is a fine custom.   I hope it is kept up.

The day was spent in getting ready for to­morrow. We won't have any live Christmas tree this year. I wasn't here to get one ahead of time. So today I did what 'steen million other folks are doing. I went down to Joe Gratziano's Como Market where we buy gro­ceries, bought a Norway spruce from among those standing out on the sidewalk and brought it home to be decorated.

This afternoon Dad and Mother drove in,

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loaded down with baskets, the mysterious contents of which were placed around the tree after sons Donald and David were abed and safely quiet.

December 27. This afternoon, as I rode on a train going from Harrisburg to Reading in Pennsylvania, I passed by the Farr Nursery, from whence came some of the dwarf iris that I planted last summer and that are back home, all frozen in. I wish it were summer and that I might have time to stop to see this place again.

December 29. Tonight from New York City I called Maggie on the phone. I learned that Donald is seriously ill. And here I am, 700 miles away and can't get back for several days yet.

December 31. On this day I learned that it is useless to try to do business in New York City on the day before New Year's. By noon everybody closes up his desk and goes out to get ready to celebrate. So I quit, too, took a

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train to Philadelphia, took a room at the Ben Franklin and ended the year by reading detec­tive story magazines.

After a while, I just sat and pondered on my sins. What a year it has been—of hurry and worry and hard work and not much prog­ress made. The year began with promise. It has ended with being hard up, in debt, noth­ing much saved, away from home. I worked hard on lawn and in garden, but I don't sup­pose the place looks much better than it did. But I learned a lot about how to grow plants and about varieties. And I did get that rock garden made and planted.

But think of the tasks undone, many an ambition unrealized. It is ever so with me and with all the rest of folks, I suppose, for such is gardening, such is life. It applies, too, to these pages I have been writing in my diary. All too often, I fear, they have been too much personal, too little of the knowledge there is about gardening that I might learn of and write.

But I can't help it. I've done the best I can. The best advice I ever discovered on writing

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is from the opening sonnet of a sequence of Sir Philip Sidney's. The poet had searched in many places for inspiration for his sonnets, when he was given this advice: "Fool," said my muse, "look in thy heart and write." Writing that doesn't come from the inside out isn't worth much, even writing about gardens and gardening and the little affairs of home life.

There is a noise and din in the streets that interrupts my pondering. The year is over. It's a New Year now—and maybe things will be a lot brighter than they have been. And a wire from Maggie a while ago says Donald is better.

P.S.—I never did get my pay for those Viola Jersey Gems I sold in October. I wrote that landscape man. Got no answer. Later, I went to see him. The house was all locked up. He had gone to Florida for the winter. Serves me right for selling 'em.

THE END