Charles Dudley Warner Garden Quotations

What a man needs in gardening is a cast-iron back, with a hinge in it.

The thing generally raised on city land is taxes.

Hoeing in the garden on a bright, soft May day, when you are not obligated to, is nearly equal to the delight of going trouting.

There are those who say that trees shade the garden too much, and interfere with the growth of the vegetables. There may be something in this:but when I go down the potato rows, the rays of the sun glancing upon my shining blade, the sweat pouring down my face, I should be grateful for shade.

I do not know the names of all the weeds and plants, I have to do as Adam did in his garden... name things as I find them.

A garden is an awful responsibility. You never know what you may be aiding to grow in it.

To own a bit of ground, to scratch it with a hoe, to plant seeds, and watch the renewal of life - this is the commonest delight of the race, the most satisfactory thing a man can do.

The principal value of a garden is not understood. It is not to give the possessors vegetables and fruit (that can be better and cheaper done by the market-gardeners), but to teach him patience and philosophy, and the higher virtues - hope deferred, and expectations blighted, leading directly to resignation, and sometimes to alienation.

The man who has planted a garden feels that he has done something for the good of the world.