THE SECRET OF THE SEED 



and throve mightily. And this revealed to 

 me another gardening secret, namely : that 

 one must dry one's seeds thoroughly in 

 the sun till they are ripe, and sow them 

 in fine, well-prepared earth, if one wants 

 them to germinate and sprout. 



And now I went about committing 

 highway robbery on all roadside shrubs, 

 and private burglary on those in my 

 friends' gardens, and pocketing all the 

 hips and haws, berries, acorns, nuts, and 

 seed pods I could find. I hung them all 

 in a muslin bag to dry in the sun, and 

 when the fall came I sowed them all in 

 the same way and place as I had sowed the 

 elders of the previous year. But this time 

 they were all raked in and pressed down. 

 Of course many of them failed to sprout, 

 because some seeds prefer to be sowed in 

 the spring, and I had yet to learn about 

 57 



