232 .GARDEN AND FARM TOPICS. 



in his rambles, on the lone Texas prairies, his eye was 

 arrested by a flower, whose wonderful coloring eclipsed the 

 rainbow, and whose delicate perfume was 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 accord- 

 ingly offered it to Mr. William Smith, Superintendent of 

 the Botanic Gardens there; but the government, so Smith 

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

 advice George trimmed his sails 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 $50 a day. But his success threw him 

 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 enter- 

 prise. 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 chroni- 

 cled 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 



