234.. NEBRASKA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



fine common sorts can be had at from ten to twenty-five cents 

 each. For twelve dollars you can get fifty kinds, two of a 

 kind. In a little while one becomes a large clump, and then 

 a divided clumj) becomes a mass. With peonies it is dilferent. 

 The best kind are expensive. We have paid from three to ten 

 dollars a root for them, and if they will double every year 

 they will do well. Many kinds of the iris will increase five 

 times as fast. Take those standard sorts, the beautiful Chal- 

 cedonia, and you will often get thirty from one in two or three 

 years. 



Some people are born faddists. They take to one thing and 

 want nothing else. One is an expert with the roses. Another 

 goes into raptures over the dahlia, until you ask him about its 

 fragrance; another wants nothing but peonies; another finds 

 phloxes all he needs. But we want them all. A well-bal- 

 anced flower garden will have the best the world affords, and 

 it will be incomplete if any of the successful standard flowers 

 are wanting. And a person does not need many things that 

 must be nursed and coddled all the time. He wants flowers 

 that are interested in the matter themselves — that will not 

 be too sensitive or sulky if things don't go exactly to their 

 liking. Yet all plants have their idiosyncracies or individU' 

 ality. One needs to study their likes and dislikes and tries 

 to find out their preferences as he would the wishes of invited 

 guests. There is an education which no one can have except 

 he is in close touch with his plants. It will help some to read 

 up about them and he may get some information from others, 

 but the very best information he can secure is from the flow- 

 ers themselves. Here he gets Lis knowledge first hand. For 

 instance, a man plants a fine lot of phloxes. He puts them 

 on a ridge. There comes a dry time. He has not cultivated 

 the ground and he finds them drying up. He goes over to a 

 neighbor and finds his are all right. Phloxes are shallow- 

 rooted plants and his neighbor has planted them rather deep 

 and in a depression instead of planting shallow on a ridge. 

 Then the ground was well cultivated so the moisture was re- 



