222 GARDEI^'ING FOR PLEASITEE. 



wafted over the Brazos for leagues ; in short, never before 



had eye of mortal rested on such a flower. The man of 



war was subdued. He betook himself to the peaceful 



task of gathering seed, and turned his steps to the haunts 



of civilized man to distribute it. We first heard of him 



in Washington, where he wished to place it in the hands 



of the government, and accordingly offered it to Mr. 



William Smith, Superintendent of the Botanic Gardens 



there ; but the government, being short of funds, so Smith 



said, was not just then in a position to buy, and with 



his advice George trimmed his *' sales "for New York 



and a market. His success in Baltimore and Philadelphia 



was so great (where he started the sale of the seeds at two 



cents apiece) that it induced him, when he struck New 



York, to advance the price to five cents a seed. He put 



up at one of the best hotels, and claimed that for a month 



his sales of the seed of the Cockatelle — the beautiful 



Texas flower — reached fifty dollars a day. But his success 



threw liim off his balance. He took to fire water, and in 



an unguarded moment fell into the hands of a newspaper 



man, who extracted from him all the facts connected 



with the enterprise. George never was a scout, had 



never been in Texas, but he had been a good customer to 



the various seedsmen of the different cities, where his 



purchases of Okra or Gumbo seed, at about fifty cents a 



pound, had made nearly a dearth of the article. His 



victims (whose names he gave by the score, and which 



were duly chronicled in the newspaper article referred 



to) were from all classes : the enterprising florist, who 



secretly went into it in a wholesale way, with a view to 



outwit his less fortunate fellows ; the grandee of Fifth 



Avenue, who • anticipated a blaze of beauty on his lawn ; 



the hotel man, whose window boxes were to perfume the 



air ; all had fallen easy victims to the wiles of Comanche 



George. George disappeared from New York, though 



there is but little doubt that his business had been too 



