I 



VARIETY IN SPRING FLOT\^RS 



In our spring gardens there are as many excitingly different 

 subjects as may be found for those of any other season of the 

 year. Let me WT-ite of bulbs as though the Department of Agri- 

 culture, through the Federal Horticultural Board, had never 

 placed them under quarantine. Almost as I dip my pen the em- 

 bargo upon many of these things has been lifted and we may 

 secure our hearts' desires in little smooth-skinned roundlings 

 to plant in October and November for the painting of spring 

 pictm-es. True, m three years, no more daffodils will be per- 

 mitted entry into America; still it is moderately certain that 

 a way will be found to give us again those special flowers without 

 which spring cannot be spring, and which we shall so sorely 

 need for our borders. 



First then, the snowdrop (Galanihus). Fortunately this is 

 one of the group which may now be freely imported, for it 

 is an essential to all spring gardening; there is no sight so dear 

 as that of the first snowdrop. After the December blooming 

 of the Lent hellebore there can be no flowers in our northern 

 climate till middle or late February when the snowdrop appears, 

 and when this little flower pierces the ice, or stands whitely 

 clustering about the foot of an old apple tree, where I come upon 

 it as a surprise, it is then — then — that my heart dances, not 

 waiting for the daffodils to bring that joyous sensation of 

 the spring. 



UMbkltY 

 K. C. StaU College 



