during this glad period of early spring before I left for
the country. "Time!" he exclaimed. "Why, my dear fellow, I don't have to
be down at the warehouse till eight-thirty."

Later in the summer I saw the wreck of his garden, choked with
weeds. "Your garden," I said, "is in poor shape." "Garden!" he said
indignantly. "How on earth can I find time for a garden? Do you realize
that I have to be down at the warehouse at eight-thirty?"

When I look back to our bright beginnings our failure seems hard indeed
to understand. It is only when I survey the whole garden movement in
melancholy retrospect that I am able to see some of the reasons for it.

The principal one, I think, is the question of the season. It appears
that the right time to begin gardening is last year. For many things it
is well to begin the year before last. For good results one must begin
even sooner. Here, for example, are the directions, as I interpret
them, for growing asparagus. Having secured a suitable piece of ground,
preferably a deep friable loam rich in nitrogen, go out three years ago
and plough or dig deeply. Remain a year inactive, thinking. Two years
ago pulverize the soil thoroughly. Wait a year. As soon as last year
comes set out the young shoots. Then spend a quiet winter doing nothing.
The asparagus will then be ready to work at _this_ year.

This is the rock on which we were wrecked. Few of us were men of
sufficient means to spend several years in quiet thought waiting to
begin gardening. Yet that is, it seems, the only way to begin. Asparagus
demands a preparation of four years. To fit oneself to grow strawberries
requires three years. Even for such humble things as peas, beans, and
lettuce the instructions inevitably read, "plough the soil deeply in the
preceeding autumn." This sets up a dilemma. _Which_ is the preceeding
autumn? If a man begins gardening in the spring he is too late for last
autumn and too early for this. On the other hand if he begins in the
autumn he is again too late; he has missed this summer's crop. It is,
therefore, ridiculous to begin in the autumn and impossible to begin in
the spring.

This was our first difficulty. But the second arose from the question
of the soil itself. All the books and instructions insist that the
selection of the soil is the most important part of gardening. No doubt
it is. But, if a man has already selected his own backyard before he
opens the book, what remedy is there? All the