370 ANNUAL REPOKT 



flowers, and in spite of all they will die, and nothing to show 

 for my efforts but the black earth, with here and there a dried - 

 up plant, any thing else but a thing of beauty." Many besides 

 this friend have made similar remarks, and I try to give them 

 the benefit of past experience, but it too often proves useless, 

 for no matter how forcibly the vital points of culture are placed 

 before them, they are forgotten, failure follows, and they ''never 

 will try to raise flowers again" and so they must depend on their 

 friends who have mastered the secrets of growing them success- 

 fully. But in this too, they often show a woeful lack of cultivation 

 and refinement as they ruthlessly tramj^le upon the plants so dear 

 to our hearts, or pluck them with as little care as they would 

 the commonest weed. Shall I ever forget letting a very dear 

 friend go out by herself to pick some pansies, and my dismay 

 when she came in with a large paj)er full of the whole branches 

 of the plants ! She said, " I tried to get all the green I could, 

 the blossoms looked so much j)rettier." It is needless to say it 

 was a good many weeks before I had many pansy blossoms. 

 Some will pull a plant up by its its roots, or break it off next to 

 the ground or pick off so many buds with the blossoms that the 

 show is checked for a long time. In order to keep up the 

 beauty of the flower bed and at the same time have all the flow- 

 ers one wants for decoration, they must be gathered judiciously. 



The best teacher is experience, but there are those whom ex- 

 perience never benefits, one or two trials without success pro- 

 duces such discouragement that they settle back on the plea 

 that they could never succeed, always had bad luck, etc. The 

 old truism, " What has been done can be done again," should 

 help every true lover of flowers. To. love flowers truly is 

 one great item of success. The mere liking of flowers for 

 ornamental purposes cannot be construed into a love for them, 

 while the love enjoys them wherever they are and is willing to 

 sacrifice time and strength to grow them. 



So don't <lepend entirely on your more successful neighbor 

 but go to work for yourself and learn the secrets of success. If 

 there is a special variaty that proves a failure with you, try 

 different methods, think, read, inquire, comx)are notes with 

 friends until you find out the trouble. Nine times out of ten it 

 can be easily removed. Once in a very great while the fault is 

 in the soil or exposure, but it is usually in the management. 

 Never undertake too much, better select a small plat of ground 



