6S GARDENING BY MYSELF. 



dexterous way of running his finger down 

 into the flower pot or seed patch to see if 

 the seeds were " coming ;" but it is a bad 

 plan for people of less experience. Let the 

 seeds wait their time, — wait too, it may be, 

 for clear sunshine or a shower of rain, — and 

 then before you know it they will be up ; 

 some sooner, some later, each after its kind. 

 I tried. a new way with my canna seeds 

 this year, to find out whether they were 

 coming up. They had steamed away on the 

 top of the stove-kettle so long, that I began 

 to have doubts on the subject, and resolved 

 one day to try a change of stimulus and 

 give them a little sunshine. So I took up 

 the pot, carried it safely across one room, 

 and dropped it full in the middle of the next ! 

 then looked about me in some dismay. For 

 an electric shock wants at least to be ap- 

 plied judiciously, and with some regard to 

 the strength of the patient. There lay the 

 shattered pot, there was the warm black 

 earth scattered far and wide ; and there, 

 sprinkled upon it, so to say, were three 



