PROCEEDINGS OF THE AUTUMN MEETING. 67 



a place of peaceful enjoymeut to yourself, a place of rest and comfort to 

 your wife, a center of fond memories to your children. 



Do not be afraid of failure. You will fail sometimes, but your very 

 failures may become a source of amusement afterward. 



I shall not undertake to give minute directions for cultivation. Any 

 good seedsman's catalogue will give you enough of these for a beginning, 

 and the rest you must mainly learn by experience, even though I should 

 try t(^ instruct you. 



But where should you plant the flowers? Anywhere rather than 

 nowhere. In the back yard, if there is really no room in front. If your 

 lot is small, place them in a border next the side fence, or along the house, 

 or even in rows beside the vegetables. 



. If 3'ou adopt the side of the lot for your border, get your neighbor to 

 agree to removal of the line fence, if you can, even if you have to agree to 

 cultivate his border as well. If this can not be done, try to hide the 

 unpleasant object with climbing plants or the taller of the flowers, which 

 should always, for this reason in part, be placed back of the others. 



Some kinds of flowers may be found which will flourish anywhere. 

 But better not anywhere in the lawn, unless the latter is of considerable 

 extent. In the ordinary lot there is no better place than in a border on 

 one side or both. In such case, establish some perennials. They will 

 come up each spring without trouble to you. Include a few shrubs, like 

 lilac, snowball, mock-orange, etc., but place them some distance apart, 

 so other kinds may have room between; or, place such shrubs in odd cor- 

 ners about the house or elsewhere. By all means, have a few hardy 

 roses. If you can have but two, you can not do better than to set Madame 

 Plantier and Jacqueminot. Either is as hardy as an oak. In the border 

 may be pteonies, the large white and purple fleur-de-lis, some of the lilies, 

 and be sure to have some of the perennial phloxes. Among these set the 

 spring-flowering bulbs, to be succeeded by annuals like asters, pansies, 

 poppies, nasturtiums, sweet-williams, petunias, mignonette, a clump or 

 two of hollyhocks, some gladioli, the pinks (the best of which are the 

 Marguerite carnations), and some sweet peas, though the latter will do 

 better on a wire trellis by themselves. There is a long list of flowers 

 adapted to such a border. Many will come up each year, being self- 

 sown. Others will require starting in boxes in the house, if you can not 

 buy the plants. 



A few cents will buy a large number of packets of seeds, while you can 

 get roots and slips of many sorts from neighbors. Such a border, three 

 or four feet wide and as long as you choose to make it, will afford a supply 

 of flowers the whole season through. 



Do not be afraid to pluck the blossoms. Gather a bunch every morn- 

 ing to adorn the breakfast table. Let the children carry them to school. 

 Give them to your neighbors. Flowers encourage generosity, for, as to 

 most of them, the more you gather the more they bloom. There are a 

 score more, both of annuals and perennials, which I have not mentioned, 

 most of them obtainable for very little money. The costliest are not 

 always the prettiest, while the oldest and plainest are not to be despised. 

 More or less of them will grow in any soil that is rich enough. As a rule, 

 the soil can not be made too rich, though, as if to suit all possible condi- 

 tions, some flourish best in the very poorest of earth. 



