'^ BRAINS AND MORE BRAINS 67 



crop is lost once in a while? It is easy to replant, 

 and I always keep an abundant supply of seeds. 

 To be sure, it is often said that children who are 

 not sent to school till they are seven or eight 

 promptly catch up with those who begin a year 

 or two sooner, and the same claim is made for 

 young plants. There is a good deal in this — 

 there are two sides to all things — ^but on the 

 whole it has been my experience that it 

 pays a gardener to be a gambler, sowing the 

 seeds recklessly as soon as the ground can be 

 worked. 



Luther Burbank began his career as a horti- 

 cultural plunger. He knew that the early gar- 

 dener catches the rich customer; and often he 

 has put a hundred thousand seeds in the ground, 

 vaguely hoping that one of them may grow 

 into the particular plant he had in mind. The 

 perfect gardener not only has brains. He is a 

 genius, a creative artist. Of this more will be 

 said later. 



HUMUS, LEAF MOLD, AND FERTILIZERS 



If the widow referred to in the Preface had 

 used her brain it ought to have told her that it 

 was as absurd to expect the plants in her garden 

 to get along without enrichment of the soil as 

 it would be to expect her children to grow up 

 without their daily food and drink. Plants 

 need a great deal less than humans, but what 

 they do need they need badly. 



