30 ANNUAL REPORT 



make larger growth and yield more and finer flowers if given room 

 according to their strength. Now right here is where the summer 

 care in reality begins, and it is where nine-teuths of the would-be 

 gardeners leave off. House cleaning, summer clothes, business 

 cares, etc., demand full attention. The flower beds look so clean 

 and nice with their regular rows of plants or sticks where plants 

 will be if the seeds will only fulfill their duty and "come up," that 

 certainly it will not be necessary to give them any further atten- 

 tion for the present at least, and they slowly glide from memory 

 and are soon wholly forgotten. Forgotten until some friend hap- 

 penmg in, the notes and events of the past few weeks are compared 

 and discussed,and the friend is straightway led out to view the result 

 of the spring enthusiasm. Well, enthusiasm wanes rapidly on dis- 

 covering the flower beds covered with a luxuriant growth of weeds, 

 and while retreating ingloriously from the scene of discomfiture, a 

 mental resolution is made to continue the work of renovation that 

 has been going on in-doors, and have a general "cVarin'-up time" in 

 the flower garden. But alas! the discovery of the interlopers and 

 the resolutions are made too late — the mischief has already been 

 done. The weeds grew so fast that most of the seeds were too 

 much discouraged to try to come up, and those that made the eS'ort 

 were so starved and choked, all the goodness of the soil and space 

 being so monopolized, that only a very spindling weak growth has 

 been made, and they only excite feelings of pity and sorrow. The 

 result of the onslaught on the weeds is a nice clean bed, with here 

 and there a poor forlorn plant that, struggle as it may, will scarcely 

 be able to cast a shadow ere the early frost will put an end to its 

 miserable existence. Well, a bed of pigeon grass, pig weed. May 

 weed, etc., is rather preferable to a bed of bare ground, and this is 

 the end of the bright plans of spring. A little care exercised at 

 the first would have avoided all this disappointment. 



The flower garden, to succeed well, should receive as careful at- 

 tention as the beets, turnips, corn, potatoes, etc., of the kitchen 

 garden. These vegetables, to do well, must be well cultivated, the 

 ground kept well stirred around them, weeds hoed out, must not be 

 too crowded, and the result is pleasing. It is a good plan to have the 

 bulk of the plants for cutting placed in a straight bed by the side 

 of the kitchen garden, and then while the good man, brother or son, 

 is hoeing among the onions, tomatoes, etc., he might possibly be in- 

 duced — by its close proximity — to hoe the flower bed too. One 

 thing is certain, the weeds must be kept under subjection, and the 

 soil well cultivated, and after a while the weeds will prove to be 



