64 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens 



high in price, and the higher the price of a package is, the 

 more surely you are guaranteed in getting something rare and 

 difficult to obtain, or an exceptionally fine selected strain. 

 This is also true of plants. No firm can market strong healthy 

 plants at retail for less than ten to fifteen cents apiece for the 

 common varieties, and a correspondingly higher price for 

 rare ones; and when a plant is offered for five cents, postage 

 prepaid, it is so small that it is worth about two. Get a few 

 plants each year from the best house you know, and you will 

 have in time a collection that is worth while. 



I have in mind the futile experiment I have made to secure 

 Eremurus robustus, that is quoted from two to three dollars a 

 plant. I could not afford to pay so much, and bought seed at 

 twenty-five cents a package, and planted them with the 

 greatest care. They take a whole year to germinate which 

 I did not know and the second year I found six tiny triangu- 

 lar spears of green where Eremurus was marked. I was very 

 happy until I discovered that the brown cutworm was also 

 interested in my collection, and three of them had already met 

 with an untimely end. I transplanted the remainder at once 

 from the hotbed this was before my emancipation from that 

 snare and put on a double patrol to guard them. A few days 

 later two more had yielded up the ghost. I visited my one ewe 

 lamb at least ten times a day, and it was growing in stature 

 and wisdom until, about three weeks later, I got out one morn- 

 ing just after the tooth of the serpent had laid low the sole 

 survivor. I could have wept, but did not; for I made such a 

 savage chase for the destroyer that grief was lost in wrath. 

 Here were two years lost, and I' was just where I began. I 

 bought more seed and planted again, waited another year for 

 the seed to germinate, and the next, which was the third 

 spring, found nineteen little threads of green up. I trans- 

 planted them and their place was carefully marked, for they 



