ABOUT FRUITS, FLOWERS AND FARMING. 29 



NINE MISTAKES. 



IN so far as instruction is concerned, I esteem my mis 

 takes to be more valuable than my successful efforts. They 

 excite to attention and investigation with great emphasis. 

 I will record a few. 



1. One mistake, which I record once for all, as it will 

 probably occur every year, has been, the attempting of more 

 than I could do well. The ardor of spring, in spite of expe 

 rience, lays out a larger garden, than can be well tended 

 all summer. 



2. In selecting the largest lima beans for seed, I obtained 

 most luxuriant vines, but fewer pods. If the season were 

 longer these vines would ultimately be most profitable ; but 

 their vigor gives a growth too rampant for our latitude. 

 If planned for a screen, however, the rankest growers are 

 the best. 



3. Of three successive plantings of corn, for table use, the 

 first was the best, then the second, and the third very poor. 

 I hoed and thinned the first planting myself, and thorough 

 ly ; the second, I left to a Dutchman, directing him how to 

 do it ; the third, I left to him without directions. 



4. I bought a stock of roses in the fall of the year. All 

 the loss of wintering came on me. If purchased in the 

 spring, the nurserymen loses, if there is loss. 



5. I planted the silver-leaved abele (Populus alba) in a 

 rich sandy loam ; in which it made more wood than it could 

 ripen. The tree was top-heavy, and required constant stak 

 ing. A poorer soil should have been selected. 



G. I planted abundantly of flower-seeds just before a 

 drought. I neither covered the earth with mats, nor 

 watered it supposing that the seeds would come up after 

 the first rain. But, in a cheerless and barren garden, I 

 have learned that heat will kill planted seeds, and that he 

 who will be sure of flowers should not depend upon only 

 one planting. 



