I072 Rural School Leaflet 



DEFECTS IN FLOWER GROWING 



Dr. L. H. Bailey in his Manual of Gardening* says: 

 "The greatest defect with our flower growing is the stinginess of it. 

 We grow flowers as if they were the choicest rarities, to be coddled in a 

 hot-bed or under a bell jar, and then to be exhibited as single specimens 

 in some little pinched and ridiculous hole cut in the turf, or perched upon 

 an ant hill that some gardener has laboriously heaped on a lawn. Nature, 

 on the other hand, grows many of her flowers in the most luxurious 

 abandon, and one can pick an armful without offense. She grows her 

 flowers in earnest, as a man grows a crop of com. One can revel in the 

 color and the fragrance and be satisfied. 



"The next defect with our flower growing is the flower bed. Nature 

 has no time to make flower-bed designs: she is busy growing flowers. 

 And, then, if she were given to flower beds, the whole effect wotdd be lost, 

 for she could no longer be luxurious and wanton, and if a flower were 

 picked her whole scheme might be upset. Imagine a geraniimi bed or a 

 coleus bed, with its wonderful ' design,' set out into a wood or in a free 

 and open landscape ! Even the birds would laugh at it ! 



" What I want to say is that we should grow flowers freely when we make 

 a flower garden. We should have enough of them to make the effort 

 worth the while. I s^nnpathize with the man who likes sunflowers. 

 There are enough of them to be worth looking at. They fill the eye. 

 Now show this man ten feet square of pinks, or asters, or daisies, all grow- 

 ing free and easy, and he will tell you that he likes them. All this has a 

 particular application to the farmer, who is often said to dislike flowers. 

 He grows potatoes and buckwheat and weeds by the acre: two or three 

 unhappy pinks or geraniums are not enough to make an impression." 



SEEDS FOR CHILDREN'S GARDENS 



The following two firms have agreed to furnish seeds under the con- 

 ditions stated, but children should imderstand that they are free to get 

 seeds from any source they may desire : 



W. Atlee Burpee & Co., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (A, page 1073) 

 James Vick's Sons, 189 Main Street, East, or 18-20 Stone Street, 

 Rochester, New York (B, page 1074) 



*By courtesy of Macmillan Company. 



