THE CHILDREN’S BOOK OF
GARDENING

UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME

A. AND C. BLACK · SOHO SQUARE · LONDON, W.


AGENTS

A HERBACEOUS BORDER

‘It is the Spirit of Paradise
That prompts such work, a Spirit strong,
That gives to all the self-same bent
Where life is wise and innocent.’
Wordsworth.

DEDICATED

TO

BETTY, BARBARA, AND CYRIL

PREFACE

This book was suggested by the questions of a boy of twelve who lived in Germany and sent for an English book that would teach him the elements of gardening. One of the authors asked the editor of a well-known gardening journal to recommend her a suitable book, and found that he knew of none written from a child’s point of view, and supplying the instruction a child could understand and use. Yet in these days, when so many children have a garden, such a book must be needed. The aim in this one has been to tell the juvenile reader how to make his garden grow, and the authors have not allowed themselves to wander in the pleasant byways of description, reflection, or amusement. They wished to help the budding gardener rather than to entertain the child, and they have tried to keep within the limits of what a child can do.

But as children vary in age and strength as well as in circumstances, they will not all be able to follow the whole of the advice here given. Cyril, for instance, could dig his own little plot of ground, but Betty could not for many a year to come; and though Cyril may not have the patience to sow his sweet peas in the best of all possible ways, Betty will read in this book how it should be done, and then get one of her father’s gardeners to do it for her. As for Barbara, she is a traveller, and can have no garden of her own; but she sets daffodils in her friends’ gardens, and is content to see them, with her inward eye, dancing in the breeze for their delight. So all children, according to their strength and means, may love a garden, whether it is contained in a few flower-pots on a city window-sill, or encouraged to expand and grow in the wide spaces of the country.

Gardening, like other bents, will find a way; but it will run more smoothly if it has a little help at the beginning.

CONTENTS