40 THE GARDEN, YOU, AND I 



be the equivalent of a hundred- ton boulder to a 

 man. 



It is to details such as these that success or failure in 

 seed raising is due, and when people say, "I prefer to 

 buy plants; I am very unlucky with seeds," I smile 

 to myself, and the picture of something I once observed 

 done by one of the so-called gardeners of my early 

 married days flits before me. 



The man scraped a groove half an inch deep in hard- 

 baked soil, with a pointed stick, scattered therein the 

 dustlike seeds of the dwarf blue lobelia as thickly 

 as if he had been sprinkling sugar on some very sour 

 article, then proceeded to trample them into the earth 

 with all the force of very heavy feet. Of course the 

 seeds thus treated found themselves sealed in a cement 

 vault, somewhat after the manner of treating victims 

 of the Inquisition, the trickle of moisture that could 

 possibly reach them from a careless watering only 

 serving to prolong their death from suffocation. 



The woman gardener, I believe, is never so stupid 

 as this; rather is she tempted to kill by kindness in 

 overfertilizing and overwatering, but too lavish of seed 

 in the sowing she certainly is, and I speak from the con- 

 viction born of my own experience. 



When the earth is all ready for the planting, and the 



