ANNUALS WORTHY AND UNWORTHY 87 



will often give you at least a buttonhole bouquet on 

 Christmas morning. 



The cosmos is counted by catalogues and culturists 

 one of the most worthy of the newer annuals, and so 

 it is when it takes heed to its ways and behaves its 

 best, but otherwise it has all the terrible uncertainty 

 of action common to human and garden parvenues. 

 From the very beginning of its career it is a conspicu- 

 ous person, demanding room and abundance of food. 

 Thinking that its failure to bloom until frost threatened 

 was because I had sown the seed out of doors in May, 

 I gave it a froht room in my very best hotbed early in 

 March, where, long before the other occupants of the 

 place were big enough to be transplanted, Mrs. Cos- 

 mos and family pushed their heads against the sash 

 and insisted upon seeing the world. Once in the 

 garden, they throve mightily, and early in July, at a 

 time when I had more flowers than I needed, the 

 entire row threatened to bloom. After two weeks of 

 coquettish showing of colour here and there, up and 

 down the line, they concluded that midsummer sun did 

 not agree with any of the shades of pink, carmine, or 

 crimson of which their clothes were fashioned, and as 

 for white, the memory of recent acres of field daisies 

 made it too common, so they changed their minds 



