34 A GARDEN DIARY 



the matter of germination, and these therefore 

 require a mother-plant or two to begin upon. 

 Others, of which the gentians may be taken as 

 a type, are unendurably slow in appearing, 

 though, if a safe place can be found for their 

 seed-box, and it is then forgotten, the time 

 passes ! The great majority of alpines, fortu- 

 nately, will grow perfectly well from seed, even 

 ultra-fastidious ones, such as Silene acaulis, or 

 Ramondia pyrenaica, which for that reason rank 

 high in nurserymen's catalogues, doing perfectly 

 well with care, and, of course, at a fiftieth part 

 of the cost. 



Details like these have a sordid ring, and I 

 have to remind myself that it is upon the 

 successful wrestling with them that one's ultimate 

 failure or triumph wholly hinges. Thrift, more- 

 over, is the badge of every proper -minded 

 husbandman, and it is according to the thriftiness 

 of his husbandry that Nature rewards his labours. 

 " But Nature," I hear some caviller exclaim, 

 " Nature is herself the most reckless of spend- 

 thrifts. She is the very mother, grandmother, 

 and great -grandmother of extravagance. She 

 squanders her treasures as the rain - clouds 

 squander their raindrops, and tosses her wealth 

 abroad like dust upon the desert air " ! True, 

 she does do all this, but I am not aware that 

 she ever specially desired that her children 

 should follow her example. " What are your 



