66 OUR ROCK-GARDEN 



afresh each year. We sent him a large boxful of 

 seed and he will now doubtless succeed in rearing 

 an ample supply. 1 



One great drawback of this want of knowledge 

 is that children and others are ignorant of the 

 deleterious effects of some of our commonest plants. 

 While our chemists carefully label their bottles 

 with full instructions and cautions as to the 

 poisonous nature of their contents and the sale of 

 these drugs is very properly fenced round with 

 many restrictions almost any mile of country 

 hedgerow, or acre of suburban allotment ground, 

 contains enough deleterious material to decimate 

 the whole parish. 



From want of definite and precise knowledge, 

 many persons think to be on the safe side by 

 telling children that everything they touch is 

 poisonous, and conjure up the most alarming tales 

 as to the consequences that will inevitably ensue 

 if the warning be disregarded. This does very 

 well perhaps for a while, but the discovery is soon 



1 A country friend of ours told his coachman to go into the 

 garden and dig up some celery. After a considerable wan- 

 dering round the paths he was at length forced to come 

 in and ask some one to show him which the celery was ! 

 Before this he had a servant who had come in from one 

 of her first walks in the country in a state of great astonish- 

 ment : she had seen a man digging onions up out of the 

 ground. Till this awakening she had thought that they 

 grew on trees, 



