Favored indeed are the gardens of these States, which border on the Great Lakes, some five hundred and eighty feet above sea-level. The country in most parts is fertile and flat, with a climate superior to that of New England in summer, and winters equally as cold. To quote our well known garden friend, Mrs. Francis King, of Alma, in central Michigan: "We have a very fine summer climate, most favorable to gardening; no humidity whatsoever, but dry and bracing, and while a short summer, a merry one for flowers. We must plan for a late spring, and frost is due in early September; but when we have learned these things it is very simple to arrange for them. Our rainfall is usually sufficient, and we practically never suffer from the heat. Hardy Chrysanthemums need a very sheltered position in winter. At Detroit, one hundred and fifty miles southeast of Alma, the trees are in spring foliage almost ten days earlier, partly owing to the distance southward and partly to the warming influence of Lake St. Clair."

The garden at Orchard House, Alma, so vividly described in "The Well-Considered Garden," is too familiar to most gardeners to need description. Briefly, the planting over the large space is all balanced in predominating colors of rose, lavender, white, and palest yellow. Gray foliage and white flowers are freely used, and through the entire summer there is not one week when the whole garden is not gay with flowers from June until frost.

To the northeast of Alma is the lovely garden at Garra-tigh, where Daffodils bloom, as in Alma, three weeks later than near the city of New York. Bay City is in the latitude of Portland, Maine, and central Oregon. This attractive garden shows the effective combination of flowers and trees so well arranged that the trees are not detrimental to the vigor of the plants, and the sunny garden space is doubly radiant by contrast, lying within the trees' encircling shadows. Garra-tigh is the Gaelic for House with the Garden.

Near Detroit, at Fairlawn, Grosse Pointe Shores, on Lake St. Clair, where the country is flat and fertile, there is another delightful place of interest noted for the abundance of flowers covering several acres of land. The accompanying photograph was made in early September, when the best of the bloom had passed. In June and July the place is a glory with Lilies, Columbine, and Delphinium that are counted in hundreds, and earlier there are Tulips and Daffodils by the thousands. Behind the broad borders that edge the walks vegetables grow in great quantities. Early Tulips come the first week of May, late Tulips about May 20. Climate and soil combine to simplify the gardening tasks in this productive country.

The House in the Woods, on Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, has a beautiful garden so well planned that it seems like an outdoor room to this charming villa. The planting scheme is moderate, easily maintained, and yet with beds broad enough to include without difficulty the plants for a long, continuous bloom. Opposite the house the picturesque studio, standing out against the wooded background, borders the garden on this side so that it lies within an enclosed court.