GARDENING BY MYSELF. 



II 



pleasure out of a solitary plant. Did ever 

 Mr. Vick's twenty acres of spring bloom 

 smell as sweet, I wonder, as a single fair lit- 

 tle buff hyacinth that was given me long 

 ago ? when it was my only one, and not even 

 the small amount of capital it represented 

 could have been spent by me for such a 

 luxury? Fairyland? — why that hyacinth 

 shone like Aladdin's palace, and was a new 

 surprise every time we looked at it. 



Success will follow love. Didn't I beat 

 Mr. Vick with his own seed two years ago, 

 and raise green-edged petunias (P. margi- 

 nata) that were bigger " by a handful," as 

 the boys say, than the one he has put in his 

 new Chromo for 1871 ? But to begin: 



January isfj — and a bright clear day. No 

 snow on the ground, no fixed ice in the river. 

 Yet not much work for my hands out-of- 

 doors. Roses were pruned and vines tied 

 up when the leaves fell ; and now I can find 

 only a little mending here and there. We 

 have had furious winds lately, and some few 

 things have broken loose ; and the covering 



