38 THE GARDEN, YOU, AND I 



record), in addition to space for cuttings of shrubs, 

 hardy roses, and other woody things that may be thus 

 rooted. 



If there is a bit of land that has been used for a vege- 

 table garden and is not wholly worn out, so much the 

 better. The best seed bed I have ever seen belongs to 

 Jane Crandon at the Jenks- Smith place on the Bluffs. 

 It was an old asparagus bed belonging to the farm, 

 thoroughly well drained and fertilized, but the original 

 crop had grown thin and spindling from being neg- 

 lected and allowed to drop its seed. 



In the birth of this bed the wind and sun, as in all 

 happy gardens, had been duly consulted, and the wind 

 promised to keep well behind a thick wall of hemlocks 

 that bounded it on the north and east whenever he 

 was in a cruel mood. The sun, casting his rays about 

 to get the points of compass, promised that he would fix 

 his eye upon the bed as soon as he had bathed his face 

 in mist on rising and turned the corner of the house, and 

 then, after watching it until past noon, turn his back, 

 so no wonder that the bed throve. 



Any well-located bit of fairly good ground can be 

 made into a hardy seed bed, provided only that it is 

 not where frozen water covers it in winter, or in the 

 way of the wind, coming through a cut or sweeping 



