162 HOME LIFE IN FLORIDA. 



of water ; let it stand for twenty -four hours before using. 

 It should be of the color of w^eak coffee when applied, and 

 sometimes it is necessary to dilute it to attain this color. 

 An ounce or two of carbolic acid is a great improvement, 

 as it serves to discourage the ' ' Meddlesome Matties" so 

 numerous among the insect families. 



A heavy mulch of leaves, grass, or pine needles, will be 

 of double advantage, not only retaining moisture and an 

 even temperature for the roots of trees and plants, but also 

 preventing the continuous and excessive growth of weeds, 

 which, proverbially rampant all over the w^orld, are not 

 backward in asserting themselves in Florida. 



Weeds, we say; yet, after all, what are weeds? The 

 fact is it all depends on where one stands. How we cher- 

 ish and coax geraniums to grow, buying plants and seeds 

 from the nurseryman ; yet in Australia, their native land, 

 they are weeds, and regarded as nuisances. Our Northern 

 florists advertise, among others, the rose geranium, and 

 their customers think highly of them ; here, in Florida, 

 they run rampant. Put a tiny slip from a bouquet into a 

 Florida bed, and in a few months it will be trespassing on 

 its neighbors' domains ; it will travel right and left, and 

 actually become a runner. It keeps one busy lopping off 

 great arm-loads of straggling branches ; but we don't quar- 

 rel with it after all. The leaves are fragrant and form a 

 pretty addition to bouquets ; the mass of green is always 

 acceptable to the eye, and when a geranium is planted here 

 and there about the grounds and trained into a mound- 

 shape the effect is very pleasing; but still these gerani- 

 ums are in a measure *' weeds" in Florida. 



And how the Northern gardener sows seeds year after 

 year of the phlox and petunia. In Florida all that is 

 necessary is to once sow a small paper of these seeds, and 

 henceforth, year after year, phlox and petunias greet you 



