CHILDREN'S HOME GARDENS 157 



long-established forest of weeds that their ancestors had used 

 in replacing the primeval forests of spruce and pine in Can- 

 ada with thrifty habitant homes and fields. 



One might thus call the roll of races that have lately come 

 to our lands and its cities. The descendants of the earlier 

 comers are often in the lead in garden work, however. Their 

 opportunities are usually the best. There is Albert, for ex- 

 ample. He lives close to the boulevard that runs along the 

 sea-wall. His parents have ample means and spacious home 

 grounds — lawns and shrubbery. Albert caught the love for 

 flowers at school, even as Abe and Alessandro did. His father 

 granted him generous garden space. His uncle, fortunately, 

 could give him the advice he needed. He himself gave the 

 unflagging zeal to the accomplishment of ambitious plans 

 that was the chief essential to their success. 



A plot fifty feet by ten was ploughed, then spaded, fertil- 

 ized, and worked into shape by Albert himself. In the 

 early spring mornings he was at work; in the evenings he 

 enlisted his uncle to help plan the next day's advance. Hav- 

 ing abundance of pocket money, he purchased such large 

 clumps of hardy perennials as the school garden could spare 

 for sale — bleeding-heart, larkspur and iris, phlox and cal- 

 liopsis. He had to enlist his comrades in carting the heavy 

 clumps home. There he carefully set them out, and, though 

 in full foliage, without wilting, for he had eased them up and 

 down the curb stones so gently that the masses of earth and 

 roots remained unbroken. Then he studied the seed cata- 

 logues evenings and planned to grow several dozen sorts of 

 annual flowers, with dahlias and gladioli at the back of the 

 bed. Everything prospered because he added his own devo- 

 tion and pluck to every dime and dollar he spent. 



