THE NURSERY 31 



days, that seeds come up at all, and that they fulfil 

 very nearly their catalogue descriptions. But they do, 

 in the main, and while some are not quite so gorgeous 

 and accommodating as their sponsors would have us be- 

 lieve, others are lovely and sweet, quite beyond the 

 power of the cataloguist to describe. 



Hawthorne wrote: "It is one of the most bewitching 

 sights in the world to observe a hill of beans thrusting 

 aside the soil, or a row of early peas just peeping forth 

 sufficiently to trace a line of delicate green." And how 

 much more bewitching, when we can follow in imagi- 

 nation this delicate green embroidery to its final 

 realization of colour and fragrance, rather than to the 

 predestined material end of Hawthorne's peas and 

 beans. 



Occasionally we have rebelliously to realize that 

 "often out of fifty seeds great Nature brings but one to 

 bear," but while this is probably true of the seed of wild 

 plants, left to the mercy of all sorts of adverse condi- 

 tions, it need very seldom be true in the garden, if a few 

 simple and sensible laws are observed. In the first 

 place, it is all important to procure good, sound seed, and 

 so we should apply to the best seed houses only, and be 

 willing to pay a fair price. Next to the vitality of, or 

 power of the seed to reproduce itself, the soil is the im- 

 portant matter. It should be light, moderately rich, 

 and pervious to moisture, and whether the seeds are to 

 be raised in a frame, in the open ground, or in a flat in- 



