Spring Crocuses 



knives, and such bungling, root-cutting tools for the fine 

 work of seedling selecting, until a practical cousin of the 

 fairer sex caught me using one of the best silver forks that 

 I had taken out in a bowl of breakfast scraps, the daily 

 portion of my gulls, and she said, " What you want is a 

 cook's fork, and I will send you one." How was I to know 

 cooks had forks designed by Heaven for the use of gar- 

 deners ? But when it came I wanted others, and as I often 

 leave them stuck about in jungles of the rock garden I am 

 a frequent customer at the ironmongery counter of the 

 Army and Navy Stores, where cook's forks are obtainable. 

 Go thou and buy two, one of the largest size for general 

 use and one a size smaller for weeding out grass, Poa 

 annua especially, among delicate bulbous things, and you 

 will bless me every time you use them, or ought to do if 

 your heart is not of stone. The Crocus treasure-troves go 

 from the seed-beds into the Crocus frame, and generally 

 suffer no check from their removal, but ripen up a good 

 bulb for next August's lifting. I wish I could breathe some 

 germs of the Crocus Seedling Fever into the words I write 

 and set all who read aflame to embark on such interesting 

 work. Do start this very spring. When you see your 

 Crocuses wide open in flower sally forth with a stick 

 of sealing-wax or the amber mouthpiece of an old pipe 

 in your hand, not as a charm, talisman, phylactery, or 

 whatever you call that sort of thing, but for practical use. 

 Rub whichever of the two unusual accompaniments of a 

 garden stroll you have chosen, on your coat-sleeve if it 

 be woollen, and hold the rubbed portion as soon as pos- 

 sible after ceasing rubbing near the anthers of an open 

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