HUMBUGS IN HORTICULTURE. 235 



Cauliflower plants. He got out of the business thoroughly 

 disgusted; and in telling his sorrowful tale to me a year 

 afterward, he related that when he went to expostulate 

 with old Peggy about having blasted his prospects, before 

 he could get a word said, she recognized him as a cus- 

 tomer, and demanded to know if he did not again want 

 spme more early Cauliflower plants. 



I have said old Peggy was also a vender of seeds. It 

 is now something over thirty years ago that a young 

 florist presented 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 I have entirely forgiven her 

 for selling me the red Mignonette. 



Perhaps there is no swindling that is more extensively 

 practised, 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 fellow came into my office last summer 

 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 would kill all noxious weeds. I need 

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



