A popular poet in her day, Thaxter is best remembered for AN ISLAND GARDEN, originally published by Houghton Mifflin in 1894. The book chronicles a year in the life of Thaxter’s garden on the island her father had purchased in 1848 and renamed Appledore Island. The hotel he built there was among New England’s first offshore summer resorts and attracted writers, musicians, and artists, including the American Impressionist Childe Hassam, whose beautiful paintings of Thaxter’s house and garden are reproduced in this book. Considered one of the most delightful examples of horticultural writing, AN ISLAND GARDEN has served as an inspiration for essayists and gardeners alike since its first publication.

    Translated from the German writings of Julius Hensel, the book was designed to introduce the people of the U.S. to the idea that plants require healthy food in order to flourish, just as a human being does. It describes a then new and rational system for fertilization which has become science today: fertilizing with stone dust. Hensel went searching for food for plants and found it in the primeval rocks. Fed on such foods, plants will yield healthy, wholesome and life sustaining food that escapes disease and parasites. A true classic of agriculture.