110 MY GROWING GARDEN 



to contribute surplus vegetables to the tables of 

 my friends, just as I now gladly cut for them the 

 more difficult flowers which they as gladly carry 

 away. 



In the garden of my boyhood home there was 

 a tradition that "roasting ears" of sweet com — 

 which were never roasted — ^might be had by 

 July fourth, to celebrate Independence Day. 

 Sweet com by name, but not by nature, is in the 

 markets here in early July, but the real thing does 

 not happen often before mid-month. One year I 

 hurried up some com grains in pots by planting 

 them in my good neighbor's greenhouse, and visions 

 of early maturity possessed me, notwithstanding 

 a wiseacre statement that corn could not be trans- 

 planted. It was transplanted, when the ground 

 was of a kindly temperature, and it grew. But 

 strange to say, the outdoor-sown first planting of the 

 same sort grew faster, much faster; and yet stranger 

 to say, the poor-growing early transplanted corn 

 formed ears sooner, and did give us our first taste 

 about five days ahead of the far lustier natural 

 planting ! 



That first taste of Golden Bantam com — ^how 

 sweet, how toothsome, how entirely delicious! 

 That is, if it is picked in the home garden, not 

 more than an hour before it makes its steaming 



