THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 



229 



things, never injure the plate at the 

 base from which the roots proceed. 

 That is a vital part : take care of the 

 plate, and it will not much matter if 

 a few scales of the bulb are destroyed ; 

 nay, if there is any sign of mildew 

 you may carefully cut the part out, if 

 the plate is preserved in its integrity, 

 and at once dusting the plant with 

 dry silver-sand, and putting the bulb 

 aside for a week that the wound may 

 cicatrize before planting. But never 

 harm a bulb if it can be helped. For 

 another last word, make your own 

 selection, and always have the best 

 and most distinct kinds in the several 



classes ; and if you have no experience 

 of the varieties, take more singles 

 than doubles, and give the preference 

 to singles only for growing in moss 

 and water. When you fill a basket 

 or pan, have one or two kinds only — 

 better one kind, so as to have all in 

 bloom at once. Many a mixture on a 

 small scale becomes a mere mess 

 before it is done with — a spike of blue, 

 perhaps, on one side, full out, and a 

 spike of pink the other, only just 

 showing colour, and all the spikes of 

 different heights and characters— a 

 discord, not a harmony. 



THE DOG, THE DONKEY, AND THE AURIFEROUS GOOSE. 



There are two capital fables intended 

 to impress upon men's minds the ne- 

 cessity of preferring real to imaginary 

 benefits. In one we read of a dog 

 crossing a stream with a piece of meat 

 in his mouth. Looking into the 

 water from the plank that carried 

 him across, he espied his own shadow 

 in the water, and taking it for another 

 dog with a good dinner, he thought 

 he would snatch the meat from his 

 mouth and have a double feast. He 

 made a clutch, made his nose wet, 

 got his mouth full of water, and the 

 stream carried away the meat, of 

 which previously he was as sure as 

 any dog in the parish. 



In another, we are told of two 

 men who possessed an ass. They sat 

 down in the desert and began to 

 quarrel which of them should have 

 the benefit of the donkey's shadow, 

 when their loud words and menaces 

 frightened Neddy out of his wits, and 

 he bolted off and was lost for ever, 

 leaving his former masters to conclude 

 that tliey had made fools of them- 

 selves. 



Ah, and there's that capital story 

 of the goose and the golden egg3, 

 which tells much the same lesson. 

 You must sometimes think of these 

 fables in looking over gardens where 

 people endeavour to make the soil 

 produce two blades of grass where 

 there's only room for one. What 



folly it is, and how little entitled to 

 sympathy are the people who fail in 

 such enterprises. Yet it is quite 

 common to see a plantation of (say) 

 currant trees, very thick, and the trees 

 weak for want of air, and yet amongst 

 them there are the remains of a crop 

 of cabbage or a few green potato 

 tubers, which tell that the cultivator 

 would have a crop of something else 

 besides currants, where the currant- 

 trees were already too thick to do 

 much good. I really did pity a poor 

 fellow not long since, who told me he 

 could do nothing witli raspberries, for 

 I saw that his stools were planted 

 very close, and that he cropped be- 

 tween the rows and between the 

 roots, so that all the season long 

 there was either hoeing or digging 

 going on within a foot or so of the 

 raspberry stools, destroying their 

 roots, causing the escape of the mois- 

 ture they love so much, and rendering 

 it quite impossible they should throw 

 up strong canes for the next year's 

 crop. I told him that to dig among 

 raspberries was to render them a 

 nuisance, because if they produce no 

 fruit it would be better to put them 

 on the fire than to go on hoping 

 against hope, and expect them to live, 

 as the chameleon is said to do, upon 

 the air. But he said he must have as 

 many cabbages and cauliflowers as 

 possible, and as he also wanted rasp- 



