The New England States naturally have the largest representation in this book, owing to the fact that the climate of numerous Western and Southern States causes many of the inhabitants to find summer homes near the North Atlantic seaboard. It is not that the New Englander is a more ardent gardener, but rather that ardent gardeners from elsewhere are tempted by the soil and climate to join the Easterners in creating these flower "plotes," which beautify hundreds of hamlets in this section. On the coast particularly flowers grow most luxuriantly, even within a few hundred yards of the surf, where snug gardens protected by windbreak hedges blossom as serenely as in an inland meadow. Not long ago most people believed that gardening or gardens near the sea were an impossibility; but when they realized the hardiness of certain dense shrubs that make perfect hedges and windbreaks, gardens on the shore sprang rapidly into existence, and we of the inland are apt to envy nature's partiality to seaside flowers. MAINE At Bar Harbor on the island of Mount Desert, Maine, as in other places of this latitude, the season, of course, begins later and ends sooner than near New York City. The flowering period is from five to six weeks shorter at Bar Harbor. However, the wonderful summer climate somewhat atones for this briefer season, and the gardens of Maine can boast of unusual luxuriance, in richness of color and size of plants, with but little heat or prolonged drought to affect their best development. The hardier seeds sown in the open will germinate in mid-May; tender annuals in June; the plants of tender annuals go out soon after June 10. Daffodils appear about May 15, followed by late Tulips; German Iris appears in the week of June 10; Sweet William and Roses in early July; Delphinium in mid-July, and Hollyhocks about July 28. Late Phlox is at its best by mid-August. Thus the plants beginning to bloom near New York City in May and early June do not, on account of the colder spring, appear at Bar Harbor for several weeks to come, when they unite their bloom with the flowers of a later period. The slow-coming spring retards earlier bloom, but has less effect on that of midsummer. The summer residents owning gardens in Maine rarely arrive much before the last of June, and consequently such early bloomers as Tulips, etc., are not seen as often as in the milder climates. In this northern State frost usually destroys the garden by September 15.