My garden friend, it cannot, as a usual thing, be done. Of course, it
may happen and sometimes does. You _might_, being a trusting lamb,
go down into Wall Street with $10,000 [Ed. Note: all monetary values
throughout the book are 1911 values] and make a fortune. You know that
you would not be likely to; the chances are very much against you. This
garden business is a matter of common sense; and the man, or the woman,
who has learned by experience how to do a thing, whether it is
cornering the market or growing cabbages, naturally does it better than
the one who has not. Do not expect the impossible. If you do, read a
poultry advertisement and go into the hen business instead of trying to
garden. I _have_ grown pumpkins that necessitated the tearing down
of the fence in order to get them out of the lot, and sometimes, though
not frequently, have had to use the axe to cut through a stalk of
asparagus, but I never "made $17,000 in ten months from an eggplant in
a city back-yard." No, if you are going to take up gardening, you will
have to work, and you will have a great many disappointments. All that
I, or anyone else, could put between the two covers of a book will not
make a gardener of you. It must be learned through the fingers, and
back, too, as well as from the printed page. But, after all, the
greatest reward for your efforts will be the work itself; and unless
you love the work, or have a feeling that you will love it, probably
the best way for you, is to stick to the grocer for your garden.

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 fifty 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 new