34 A GARDEN DIARY 
the matter of germination, and these therefore 
require a mother-plant or two to begin upon. 
Others, of which the gentians may be taken as 
a type, are unendurably slow in appearing, 
though, if a safe place can be found for their 
seed-box, and it is then forgotten, the time 
passes! The great majority of alpines, fortu- 
nately, will grow perfectly well from seed, even 
ultra-fastidious ones, such as Silene acaulis, or 
Ramondia pyrenaica, which for that reason rank 
high in nurserymen’s catalogues, doing perfectly 
well with care, and, of course, at a fiftieth part 
of the cost. 
Details like these have a sordid ring, and | 
have to remind myself that it is upon the 
successful wrestling with them that one’s ultimate 
failure or triumph wholly hinges. Thrift, more- 
over, is the badge of every proper-minded 
husbandman, and it is according to the thriftiness 
of his husbandry that Nature rewards his labours. 
“ But Nature,” I hear some caviller exclaim, 
‘‘Nature is herself the most reckless of spend- 
thrifts. She is the very mother, grandmother, 
and great-grandmother of extravagance. She 
squanders her treasures as the rain - clouds 
squander their raindrops, and tosses her wealth 
abroad like dust upon the desert air”! True, 
she does do all this, but I am not aware that 
she ever specially desired that her children 
should follow her example. ‘What are your 
