punged until it was formally represented that 

 however flattering it might be to the contractors 

 that the powers of the Almighty should be attrib- 

 uted to them, they must humbly decline to as- 

 sume the responsibility of exercising such exalted 

 functions. This argument actually severed a 

 strand of official red tape ; but who of us, in any 

 walk of life, is there who is not bound up in the 

 red tape of convention? 



What, however, has red tape to do with garden- 

 ing? To which question I may answer a great 

 deal ; since horticulture has at all times been and 

 is now still to a great extent the slave of fashion 

 and convention. 



Returning to my own little gardening pursuits, 

 I have acquired a number of plants, tubers, and 

 roots of the Flame Nasturtium, Tropoeolum 

 speciosum, which I am anxious to grow. The form 

 in which it was supplied to me varied. One nurs- 

 eryman sent me growing plants in pots, another 

 fine, healthy-looking tubers as large as a small 

 hen's egg, and a third supplied a lot of long, thin, 

 white roots. The instructions for planting which 

 I have read are still more numerous and diverse. 

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