SEED-SOWING 43 



chances of ripening seeds than we have. On the 

 other hand, home-saved seeds are never stale — you 

 can depend on that. Any of the high-class 

 florists will get seeds from Paris or elsewhere, if 

 requested. 



Sometimes we have recourse to the old-fashioned 

 homely way of ' mothering ' the seeds that fall — 

 that is to say, leaving them where they lie, and 

 covering them and feeding them during the winter. 

 These seedlings often make the best and strongest 

 plants, also the earhest, but in very cold springs 

 they may suffer. Many other plants besides those 

 named can be grown from seed if we like — in fact, 

 pretty well aU of them ; but some of the Herbs 

 advertised in catalogues as raised fi'om seed would 

 be better if grown from slips or divisions of the 

 roots. 



The general scheme of seed-sowing is so well 

 described in Tusser's Five Hundred Points of 

 Good Husbandry, that we cannot refrain from 

 quoting a few verses of it : 



' In March and in April, from morning till night, 

 In sowing and setting good housewives delight ; 

 To have in a garden or other like plot 

 To trim up their house and to furnish their pot. 



