GARDENING BY M YSELF. j y i 



they will not all bloom, any more than all 

 your seeds will come up, or all your cut- 

 tings grow. Some crocus or other will take 

 a distaste to the world after seeing an inch 

 of it, and so droop down and fade away. 

 Some snowdrop, rising higher to peer out 

 through the window panes, will discover 

 that after all it is not spring ; and in 3^ our 

 warm room its white buds will turn yellow 

 and shrivel up with disappointment. Some 

 enterprising tulip will run so fast, going all 

 to> top, that there is nothing for it but to 

 tumble down and die ingloriously of mere 

 want of root and patience. Such things 

 will be in this typical world of flowers. 

 And thus you come to look at the success- 

 ful ones, the finished specimens of flower- 

 hood, with a certain added gladness and ap- 

 preciation. They have fully wrought out 

 the beautiful plan of their life; there are no 

 more failures possible for them. 



Snowdrops, wl:en they do well, are parti- 

 cularly lovely in the house; their pure 

 white and green tinting seems like a very 



