THE LURE OF THE GARDEN 



Should one of these miserable catalogues be mislaid, 

 the entire household is turned upside down. Unkind 

 accusations and violent reproaches are poured out on 

 the various members of the unhappy family; the lost 

 catalogue, it appears, contained data of the highest im- 

 portance, priceless scribblings on the margins, infor- 

 mation and observation worth their weight in gold. 

 Despair and suspicion reign until the thing is found ; 

 and the difficulty of finding a lost magazine or catalogue 

 is one of the awe-inspiring, unexplainable facts of exis- 

 tence. There is no spot too small for it to crawl into, 

 no place so obvious but it can lie there unobserved. If 

 there is a fire within reach, it is certain to have betaken 

 itself into the hottest portion, and to have spared no 

 pains in getting its important parts burned. If there 

 is an old closet to be found that has not been opened 

 for years, it is invariably discovered to be jammed 

 with such lost publications, though naturally such dis- 

 covery is not made until the time of its usefulness is 

 past. 



Another peril in the seed-annual habit lies in the de- 

 pression its indulgence is sure to bring about. No amount 

 of experience teaches their victim that they are pure 

 fiction, based on a perverted imagination, of lying and 

 unstable character. The pictures they contain, like the text 

 that babbles rapturously through them, have no relation 

 to the actual product of root and seed as they are planted 

 in earthly gardens. Yet, season after season, their 



