122 EXPENSES. 



Then my seed bill was no bagatelle. I have 

 a weakness for seeds, and every year buy many 

 more than are needful. They are such sugges- 

 tive things, so full of promise, but, also, like 

 many things in this world, so often bringing dis- 

 appointment. You sometimes find yourself like 

 certain moral reformers who are apparently sow- 

 ing considerable good seed, which comes up 

 only as weeds ; or like some short-sighted phi- 

 losophers who scatter theories that produce a 

 very different crop from what they expected. 

 When you plant a thought or a seed you can- 

 not be perfectly sure what it will develop into. 

 But after dealing with R. H. Allen & Co., New 

 York, for about nine years, I find that the pros- 

 pect of vegetable heretics is very small, and that 

 they never try to improve their seed on the 

 principle of old wine. And when I receive one 

 of Mr. Vick's dainty packages of flower-seeds, 

 I hare not so much faith and hope as knowledge 



