150 THE GOLD MINE 



said lie sent to the best florists for the very choicest 

 seed, and he planted ^t time and again and not a seed 

 grew. 



"Did you plant in the fall or spring?" 



"In the spring, of course." 



"Well, there is just where you missed it. If you 

 will watch N"ature, you will see that she throws the 

 seed on the ground, where it lays subject to the heat 

 and cold, lying in the slush and snow and freezing 

 and thawing, and then the seeds will come up like 

 hardy weeds in the spring. If the winter has been 

 wet and cold Avith a good deal of freezing and thawing, 

 you will see hundreds of little ones coming up all 

 around the parent plants." 



Sometimes these are hoed up for weeds, sometimes 

 the gardener thinks they will amount to nothing; that 

 they will be nothing but scrubs, and so he hoes them 

 up, and thus thousands of promising little plants have 

 been destroyed. The w^ay is to pick the seed just be- 

 fore they are ready to burst from the pod ; put them in 

 a basket or large paper box with a cover on so they 

 will not pop out. Sow them in the fall under a screen 

 or where you can water them well in the spring. See 

 that they do not dry when germinating, and you will 

 have a fine bed of strong plants which will begin to 

 bloom the first of July and continue till the hard frosts 

 of autumn. The accompanying picture shows a group 

 of seedlings in bloom jNTovember 1st — of course, after 

 several frosts. 



