A SPRING TROUBLE 87 



year-old wallflower, he certainly does not like it. 

 The advent of the cheap and ready seed assort- 

 ments made a wonderful change. The amateur 

 who does not buy at least twenty kinds is a poor 

 creature. He sows the contents of his packets 

 on nice little plots, perhaps in pretty geometrical 

 patterns, and, leaving the rest to Nature, hopes 

 for a summer display which will dazzle the 

 beholders' eyes. It probably happens that 50 per 

 cent, of the assortment is of seed badly adapted 

 to the ground, and that 25 per cent, more are 

 difficult to persuade that the British climate is 

 quite the right thing. But in reality these are 

 considerations of small moment, for most of the 

 seeds do germinate, and that is the great thing. 

 They are required to make delicate seedlings, 

 nothing more, and the grateful snail eats them 

 off flush with the ground. The result is neat and 

 tidy so different from the time when the snail 

 had to depend wholly on hardy herbaceous feed- 

 ing, and, by reason of its tough nature, was obliged 

 to select the softer parts of leaves, imparting to 

 the whole the ragged and unkempt appearance 

 so objectionable to sensitive taste. 



These assortments and " selections " carry snails 

 through April with a variety and delicacy of diet 

 unknown to them in past ages, and when May 

 comes they are sportive and carry a heart for any 

 fate. In other words, they are just ready to 

 appreciate the bedding-out plants which a benefi- 

 cently developed commercial system brings into 

 the market at the gastronomic moment. Asters, 

 stocks, marigolds tough enough later on are just 



