COMMUTER'S WIFE 209 



yet, a well-known weed with a showy orange-red 

 flower, hawkweed or devil's paintbrush, is recklessly 

 praised. The same being a perfect curse to agriculture 

 in the grass region is offered as a floral novelty, and 

 so on until, passing from flower to vegetable garden, 

 a tomato appears that requires a folded twelve-inch 

 plate to picture it, " three-quarters life size " ! 



I still read on. The pictures are " all from 

 life," taken at the seed-testing ground. Ah, yes, but 

 please realize, Madam Commuter, that the seed-test- 

 ing ground is not your garden, that the remarks 

 do not apply to you, and that it is easy to enlarge 

 photographs. Be thankful also that it is not your 

 garden ; for you would become blind with the glare 

 of colour, and gardening would be such a mechani- 

 cal certainty that there would be no pleasure in it. 



I know all this by bitter experience in the 

 days when plant money was tight. I have eaten 

 the wild apple, and yet return to the bitter fruit. 

 I have been burned, and yet poke the fire with 

 my fingers. I know that the coloured flower packets 

 at ten cents contain only as many seeds as the 

 plain ones of the conservative old firm do at five 

 cents, yet I reach for my pad and pencil, and find 

 myself wondering if possibly the Perpetual Bloom- 

 ing Pekin Perfection Poppy offered, may not 



