GETTING INTO THE GROUND 45 



garden, even though in northern corners some time- 

 worn snow yet lingers. Where I lift the loose pro- 

 tection from the bulb beds, I see there fat yellowish 

 green shoots, hunting the light; but I drop back 

 the litter, and say, "Not yet; Jack Frost is looking 

 for you !" 



The soil, too, in this last week of the month is 

 usually fit to push a spade into. To plant roses, 

 trees, shrubs, now, means a greater assurance of 

 prosperity for them. This is true especially of 

 "dormant" or outdoor-grown roses, much the best 

 kind to plant. All the better if the ground was 

 made ready before frost closed it in the early winter; 

 but whenever it is workable in March, the holes 

 may be made, and the soil stirred up with rotten 

 manure, to be fully prepared for planting promptly 

 when the shrubs are at hand. 



It has been a sort of fetish with us to plant 

 early peas in March, if possible, just as my Pennsyl- 

 vania German ancestors believed that St. Patrick's 

 day March seventeenth was the one time for 

 sowing late cabbage seed, even if it had to be sowed 

 on the snow! Neither habit seems sensible; for we 

 assuredly take better care of our cabbage-sowings 

 now in a coldframe, and I have found that Gradus 

 peas sown the last days of March, in soil that had 

 not felt the warming touch of the sun to any depth, 



