164 GARDENING WITH BRAINS '^ 



sheep or hen manure (very weak) added to the 

 water two or three times a month will do the 

 rest — ^provided you pick the blossoms every day 

 or two. Hens keep on laying only when you 

 take away the eggs. 



Pansy plants started in August one summer 

 can be kept full size till November or even 

 December of the next year if during the second 

 August all the old straggling shoots are cut out 

 close to the ground and the soil is enriched by 

 stirring it around them and working in a jittle 

 bone meal and wood ashes or a minute quantity 

 of pulverized sheep or old hen manure. These 

 are also the best foods to use when first preparing 

 the bed for the pansy seeds or plants. If, in 

 addition, you have, five or six inches below the 

 soil thus enriched, a layer of inverted sods 

 (clover preferred), you will have flowers deserv- 

 ing a gold medal at the state fair. The rotting 

 sods will tempt the roots to grow down where 

 it is cold and moist. 



It is not best to grow pansies in the shade of 

 a tree or a building. Noonday shade may be 

 an advantage when the plants are not freely 

 watered; but when they are, the best location 

 is in the open, where the wind can sweep over 

 the bed, wafting the pansy fragrance toward 

 your piazza. 



A last word. Why do the seedsmen in their 

 catalogues never mention that pansies are 

 fragrant, as they do in the case of other flowers? 



