CHAPTER TWO 



THE NURSERY 



Labour is the House that Love dwells in. 



Russian Proverb. 



A~~ L nurseries summon our interest and sympathy 

 whether they shelter human babies or those of 

 the animal kingdom, and the nursery which 

 guards seedling plants is not by any means the least in 

 its appeal to our tender protectiveness and maternal 

 solicitude. 



These little babies of the plant world need us and de- 

 pend upon our care. If we neglect them, they languish; 

 if we desert them, they perish; we must feed them, pro- 

 tect them from cold or extreme heat, nurse them if 

 assailed by disease, and watching carefully their growth 

 provide, when it is needed, a wider sphere in which they 

 may expand and develop. Wherever there are young 

 and tender things looking to us for support, there are we 

 apt to be deeply interested, and herein lies the fascina- 

 tion of the plant nursery. A garden is as incomplete 

 without this adjunct as a home, and no gardener knows 

 the full joy of his craft who does not care for his plants 

 from seedhood to maturity, making them his own as no 

 bought plants can ever be. To buy plants already past 



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