Originally published: Garden City, N.Y. : Doubleday, Doran, 1935.

Includes index.

This is not strictly a gardening book (although there is plenty for the gardener to learn in it), but the reflections of a man thinking not only about what he grows but how it grows, its roots in religion, the Bible, history and medicine. Beston described his efforts as "part garden book, part musing study of our relation to nature through the oldest group of plants known to gardeners." The book was written at the Maine homestead, Chimney Farm. Illustrated with the woodcuts of American stone cutter/letter designer/craftsman John Howard Benson.

SACFinal081324