12 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens 
with the front door opening to the north and the back door to 
the south of it. 
It was at this juncture that several of those much-maligned 
seed catalogues came to Adam, who prudently buys his vege- 
table seeds during the month of February, before the spring 
rush comes. Idly turning over its pages, my eyes struck two 
familiar names—Ageratum and Agrostemma. In an instant 
I was carried back ten years, when, one summer, in Minnesota 
I undertook gardening on the alphabetical basis (just as the 
Peterkins were instructed in foods) and I got no further than 
the A’s, so interesting was the initial letter of the alphabet. 
The A’s always have the advantage, much as the first vol- 
umes of Grote’s “History of Greece” show wear and finger- 
marks that entirely disappear when the twelfth volume is 
reached. 
In that remote time I had read the A’s with enthusiasm, and 
as none of the names was familiar, it is small wonder that my 
fancy was captivated with these words; ‘““Ageratum—effective 
plants for bedding, covered with bloom throughout the sea- 
son.” Surely that was the plant for me! Hear also, “ Agro- 
stemma—aAttractive, free-flowering perennials of easy culture 
and excellent for cutting.” Attractive? It not only at- 
tracted, but caught me at first sight. I bought both, dug 
little graves for both, visited them at increasing intervals, as 
those do who are careless of their dead, and then quite forgot 
them. No, not quite; because for years after I used to specu- 
late about their fate; had they come up? What did they look 
like? I had never found out. Now here was a chance for an 
intelligent settlement of that ten-year old question. I’d buy 
them, and watch. So I browsed on; not only the A’s but every 
letter in the alphabet was rich in treasures. If the A’s 
bloomed throughout the season, the B’s were “an unrivaled 
strain saved from the best selected blooms of the finest hy- 
