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CHAPTER XI. 



OBTAINING PLANTS AND IMPROVING OUR STOCK. 



AVING prepared and enriched our ground, we are ready for the 

 plants. They can often be obtained from a good neighbor whose 

 beds we have watched across the fence, and whose varieties we have 

 sampled to our satisfaction. But the most liberal neighbors may not be able 

 to furnish all we need, or the kinds we wish. Moreover, in private gardens, 

 names and varieties are usually in a sad tangle. We must go to the 

 nurseryman. At this point, perhaps, a brief appeal to the reader's 

 common sense may save much subsequent loss and disappointment. 



In most of our purchases, we see the article before we take it, and can 

 estimate its value. Just the reverse is usually true of plants. We know 

 or believe that certain varieties are valuable, and we order them from 

 a distance, paying in advance. When received, the most experienced 

 cannot be sure that the plants are true to the names they bear. We 

 must plant them in our carefully prepared land, expend upon them money, 

 labor, and, above all, months and years of our brief lives, only to learn, 

 perhaps, that the varieties are not what we ordered, and that we have 

 wasted everything on a worthless kind. The importance of starting right, 

 therefore, can scarcely be overestimated. It is always best to buy of men 

 who, in the main, grow their own stock, and therefore know about it, and 

 who have established a reputation for integrity and accuracy. The 

 itinerant agent flits from Maine to California, and too often the marvelous 

 portraits of fruits that he exhibits do not even resemble the varieties 



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