AND THE WILDERNESS BLOSSOMED 



would fail to survive the winter if planted in the 

 fall. It took me, for instance, several years to 

 get a race of Tulip Poppies that would bloom 

 satisfactorily from seed planted in the fall. I 

 have planted in the fall a thousand poppy seeds 

 which came from a distance, and had but a beg- 

 garly dozen of plants the next season, yet appar- 

 ently all of the seeds I afterwards gathered from 

 these plants survived the following winter and 

 germinated in the spring. This is not an excep- 

 tional instance, but has happened over and over 

 again in my experience, and with almost every 

 species of hardy annual I have raised. 



There is, however, another reason why your 

 own seeds will be the better. They are fresh ! 

 Some seeds, of course, retain their power of ger- 

 mination for a long time, but all seeds deteriorate 

 to a greater or less degree for every day they are 

 kept. I told you above, that you should mark 

 on your packages of seeds the year in which they 

 were gathered. Even when I wrote that line I 

 deemed it an unnecessary detail, for I believed 

 every amateur seed-grower would do this instinc- 

 tively, as in his eyes the date would be almost as 

 important as the name. Yet I know of but one 

 seedsman in this country who makes even a pre- 



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