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when planted in tlie open ground. This list includes the 

 majority of the most brilliant flowers of our gardens, and 

 when it is considered that five cents will purchase a package 

 of seed of nearly all of these, and ten cents of the remainder, 

 and that when once planted no further outlay will be needed 

 for a generation ; even those housewives who are driven by a 

 hard necessity to exercise the utmost frugality, if, with a small 

 area at command, can afford a garden for their own pleasure 

 and the cultivation of the love of the beautiful in their grow- 

 ing families. There are a few facts worth noting relative to 

 these self-seeders. 1st, That the quality of the flowers does 

 not deteriorate when nature is allowed to sow them year after 

 year. 2d, That these self-sown seed come up earlier, bloom 

 earlier, and under the same conditions of room and food the 

 plants from them are more vigorous than those raised from 

 hand sown seed. 3d, That owing to the shallow planting 

 required a large portion of seed planted by hand is apt to 

 fail, not obtaining sufficient moisture at the surface to enable 

 them to vegetate ; or, if a heavy rain falls soon after planting, 

 are liable to be washed out, or high winds prevail, the cover- 

 ing soil and the seed itself is likely to be blown away. 



To get their best development from these self-sown plants, a 

 caution is needed, and that with some emphasis, — thin your 

 plants very boldly. Begin the thinning process when they 

 are about an inch high. It is safe to say that not one lady in 

 a hundred has the courage to thin her plants as liberally as is 

 necessary to obtain their natural form and the largest and 

 best display of the flowers ; and further that what little thin- 

 ning is done is done too late, leaving the plants remaining 

 both slender and tender. 



It requires a considerable degree of moral courage for our 

 housewife when she finds her garden at mid-spring covered 

 with numberless vigorous young plants, considering, as slie 

 involuntarily does, the possibilities wrapped up in each indi- 

 vidual one, that it has the capacity to bear numberless beautiful 

 flowers — to grasp them with fingers that seem wanton, and 



