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YOUNG AMERICA'S GARDEN BOOK by Louise Bush Brown

YOUNG AMERICA'S GARDEN BOOK

By

Publisher: Scribner

America's Garden Book by the Bush-Browns is virtually a gardener's bible to many seasoned gardeners. The outgrowth of years of teaching and experience at the Ambler School of Horticulture, it is a microcosm of the teaching program there, a one-volume encyclopedia, an indispensable reference tool -- but definitely not a single book library for the neophyte. I had hoped its offspring- Young America's Garden Book - would provide the necessary first steps leading to the other book. But it is wholly different in concept, scope and handling. The basic information on soil, tools, preparation, cultivation, etc., is here but it takes ""doing"" to arrive at learning how to do. Preliminary chapters on the art, craft and science of gardening are somewhat above beginning young gardeners' heads; how plants grow would need interpretation- or experience- for full comprehension. And the main body of the book consists of a series of projects (13 flower projects; 3 fruit projects; 12 miscellaneous projects). And no one of these is for the first and second grader at the age when a burgeoning curiosity about growing things demands an ABC approach- and quick results at the lowest common denominator. Put this at the level of an already interested seventh to ninth grade level. Lower than that will demand close cooperation on the part of an informed adult. Some definitions, lists, charts of growth habits and photographs help.