22 MY GROWING GARDEN 



So now comes the delightful difficulty of it all ! 

 I want everything new and fine that is offered; but 

 I know quite well that I have neither room nor 

 reason for all these "novelties." And also I know 

 as well that not all of them will turn out in my 

 garden exactly as they are described; which is, I 

 presume, one of the best reasons in the world for 

 adventuring into the trial of them. It is a fasci- 

 nating gamble, a fair game of chance; and even if I 

 draw less prizes than I hope for, I shall have had 

 the anticipation of prizes and the satisfaction of 

 trying for them. So it is, paraphrasing in my 

 garden philosophy, better to have tried and lost 

 than never to have tried at all. In fact, I am sure 

 to win something, even if the sweet peas are not 

 iso many inches across, the petunias so wonderfully 

 blotched, the asters larger than a respectable chry- 

 santhemum, and if those phenomenal South African 

 annuals fail to germinate at all. 



Just here there comes into sight an advantage 

 I possess that accounts in part for the drawing 

 power of these annually recurring novelties that 

 are thus so alluringly offered in the front pages of 

 the catalogues. I know how some novelties, at 

 least, happen, and why these are thus for sale. My 

 acquaintance with these honestly hopeful gentle- 

 men of the seed-stores has not in a generation 



