CONTENTS
| MY OWN ACRE | [1] |
| THE AMERICAN GARDEN | [41] |
| WHERE TO PLANT WHAT | [79] |
| THE COTTAGE GARDENS OF NORTHAMPTON | [107] |
| THE PRIVATE GARDEN'S PUBLIC VALUE | [129] |
| THE MIDWINTER GARDENS OF NEW ORLEANS | [163] |
ILLUSTRATIONS
| "That gardening is best ... which best ministers to man's | |
| felicity with least disturbance of nature's freedom" | [Frontis] |
| " ... that suddenly falling wooded and broken ground where Mill | |
| River loiters through Paradise" | [6] |
| "On this green of the dryads ... lies My Own Acre" | [8] |
| "The beautiful mill-pond behind its high dam keeps the river full | |
| back to the rapids just above My Own Acre" | [12] |
| "A fountain ... where one,—or two,—can sit and hear it whisper" | [22] |
| "The bringing of the grove out on the lawn and the pushing of the lawn | |
| in under the grove was one of the early tasks of My Own Acre" | [24] |
| "Souvenir trees had from time to time been planted on the lawn | |
| by visiting friends" | [26] |
| "How the words were said which some of the planters spoke" | [28] |
| "'Where are you going?' says the eye. 'Come and see,' says the | |
| roaming line" | [34] |
| "The lane is open to view from end to end. It has two deep bays | |
| on the side nearest the lawn" | [36] |
| " ... until the house itself seems as naturally ... to grow up out of the | |
| garden as the high keynote rises at the end of a lady's song" | [48] |
| "Beautiful results may be got on smallest grounds" | [52] |
| "Muffle your architectural angles in foliage and bloom" | [52] |
| Fences masked by shrubbery | [64] |
| After the first frost annual plantings cease to be attractive | [72] |
| Shrubbery versus annuals | [72] |
| Shrubs are better than annuals for masking right angles. South | |
| Hall, Williston Seminary | [74] |
| " ... a line of shrubbery swinging in and out in strong, graceful | |
| undulations" | [74] |
| "However enraptured of wild nature you may be, you do and must | |
| require of her some subserviency about your own dwelling" | [84] |
| "Plant it where it will best enjoy itself" | [86] |
| " ... climaxes to be got by superiority of stature, by darkness and breadth | |
| of foliage and by splendor of bloom belong at its far end" | [94] |
| "Some clear disclosure of charm still remote may beckon and lure" | [96] |
| " ... tall, rectangular, three-story piles ... full of windows all of | |
| one size, pigeon-house style" | [100] |
| "You can make gardening a concerted public movement" | [112] |
| "Plant on all your lot's boundaries, plant out the foundation-lines | |
| of all its buildings" | [122] |
| "Not chiefly to reward the highest art in gardening, but to procure | |
| its widest and most general dissemination" | [122] |
| "Having wages bigger than their bodily wants, and having spiritual | |
| wants numerous and elastic enough to use up the surplus" | [138] |
| "One such competing garden was so beautiful last year that strangers | |
| driving by stopped and asked leave to dismount and enjoy a nearer view" | [138] |
| "Beauty can be called into life about the most unpretentious domicile" | [148] |
| "Those who pay no one to die, plant or prune for them" | [148] |
| "In New Orleans the home is bounded by its fences, not by its | |
| doors—so they clothe them with shrubberies and vines" | [174] |
| "The lawn ... lies clean-breasted, green-breasted, from one | |
| shrub-and-flower-planted side to the other, along and across" | [174] |
| "There eight distinct encumbrances narrow the sward.... In a | |
| half-day's work, the fair scene might be enhanced in lovely | |
| dignity by the elimination of these excesses" | [176] |
| "The rear walk ... follows the dwelling's ground contour with | |
| business precision—being a business path" | [178] |
| "Thus may he wonderfully extenuate, even ... where it does not | |
| conceal, the house's architectural faults" | [180] |
| " ... a lovely stage scene without a hint of the stage's unreality" | [182] |
| "Back of the building-line the fences ... generally more | |
| than head-high ... are sure to be draped" | [184] |
| " ... from the autumn side of Christmas to the summer side of Easter" | [184] |
| "The sleeping beauty of the garden's unlost configuration ... keeping | |
| a winter's share of its feminine grace and softness" | [186] |
| "It is only there that I see anything so stalwart as a pine or so rigid | |
| as a spruce" | [192] |
MY OWN ACRE
A lifelong habit of story-telling has much to do with the production of these pages.
All the more does it move me because it has always included, as perhaps it does in most story-tellers, a keen preference for true stories, stories of actual occurrence.