Evening star., 1930-10-30

One of the best things about garden
is that one may be failure there with
out exciting the commiseration of ones
friends.
You know how it is in the worka-
day world. Your friends are always so
extremely solicitous that you shall not
fail, always giving advice, always in
sisting that you better your besH'
They are hurt because you have not
written the great American novel, or
won the amateur golf championship.
They insinuate that you are a trlf1e
lazy or you long ago would have re-
flected great credit upon them. AS for
themselves, they are willing to admit
that they lack the divine fire, but you!
You could do II II you wanted to!
You are torn between a desire TO be
brutally frank and to disabuse their
minds of such foolishness and O. per-
fectly human wish to believe them.
Yes, all the time you have secretly
believed that you could perhaps write
that great American novel," or could
win a championship, or could sell more
soap than any other soap seller.
It is hard to bring ones self to tell
all these dear friends who have such
faith in you that this hero of their
dreams is, after all, a very ordinary
fellow. who is Just plugging along, try
ing to earn a living, and whose secret
dream and aspiration is to get to the
point where he won't have to work at
all!
You hate to do it. They have been
so disgusted with your failure. They
enjoy your failure. All the time they
are talking about how you have wasted
been turned away from contemplating
their own deficiencies. Perhaps that is
why they do it.
In the garden one may fail as largely
as one pleases, without once bringing
on your devoted head word of blame
from friends or relatives. In the gar
den one expects failure. and no one
worries about it or pretends to worry
about it.
One of Americas most famous gar
deners says that he is satisfied II he
does not exceed 40 per cent of failure.
Thus, II he raises slightly more than
half Of his crop, he is satisfied. Yet
many a raw amateur becomes terribly
disgusted with gardening if he does not
succeed, and in his very first season,
in raising successfully 100 per cent OF
the things he plants.
There are so many factors involved
that even the expert cannot be sure.
sometimes the seed which one gets
even from some OF the Oldest houses. Is
not good. Petunias ordered of one va
riety turn out to be mixture, and an
unattractive mixture at that. Or, again,
the resulting plants do not do very well
for some obscure reason. Perhaps they
lack vitality, maybe the soil Is poor
or the season is difficult one, or new
brand of insect begins to eat the leaves.
There are so many factors involved
in the gentle art of gardening that no
one may be singled out as the one and
only reason why failure comes. The
moot giving or withholding OF water
may be the chief cause Of failure, but
the more experienced a gardener one
is the less likely he Is to hold any one
factor to blame.
The beauty Of gardening Is that 1t
make no real difference, after all. One
is not in the boat Of the farmer, whose
very living depends upon success
With him, the failure Of one crop may
spell disaster. With the home garden
er, nothing much depends on the
crop" Here are some tuberous-root-
ed begonias. Well, suppose they do not
do very we'll What of it2 Over
there are some of the prettiest lilies
(Philadelphia) one would want to see
And every one knows that lilies are
great deal harder to raise.