HUMBUGS IN HORTICULTURE. 225 



eented himself before her and purchased an ounce of 

 Mignonette. Ever alive to business, Peggy asked him if 

 he had tried the new red Mignonette. He protested there 

 was no such thing, but Peggy's candid manner persuaded 

 him, and fifty cents were invested. The seed looked 

 familiar, and when it sprouted it looked more familiar ; 

 when it bloomed it was far too familiar, for it was Red 

 Clover. Peggy has long since been gathered to her 

 fathers, and 1 have entirely forgiven her for selling me 

 the red Mignonette. 



Perhaps there is no swindling that is more extensively 

 practiced, and which so cruelly injures the operators of 

 the soil, as that of adulteration in fertilizers. The great 

 mass of our farmers and gardeners are poor men, who 

 can ill afford even to pay for the pure fertilizers necessary 

 to grow their crops, and to pay money and high freights 

 on adulterations worse than useless, is hard indeed. The 

 ignorance of those dealing in such wares does much to 

 spread the evil. A man came into my office last sum- 

 mer with samples of a fertilizer, nicely put up in cans, 

 which he claimed could be sold in immense quantities by 

 the seedsmen, as it had not only the wonderful properties 

 of invigorating and stimulating all planted crops, but 

 that it at the same time luould hill all noxious weeds. T 

 need not say that he had waked up the wrong passenger, 

 and that he made a rapid movement toward the door. 

 Yet, notwithstanding the impudence and absurdity of 

 such a claim, the scamp was enabled to prowl around 

 the vicinity of New York for weeks, and, undoubtedly, 

 sold to hundreds. If he had said he had a cannon from 

 which, when grape shot was fired into a crowd, it killed 

 only enemies — never friends — the one claim would have 

 been as reasonable as the other. 



There is another species of humbugging, which, though 

 it can hardly be called swindling, is somewhat akin to 

 it. I refer to the men who claim to have secrets by which 



