32 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens 
very little is gained by an early start. I had to dig the little 
things up with my eyes during February and March; but when 
the vital force of spring really begins, nothing can resist it. 
It stirs the heart of the onion buried in the depth of the cellar, 
and the potato from the black depths of its barrel reaches out 
in response; and until this force operates, nothing speeds as 
it should. I found, too, that asters planted in February in- 
doors were but a trifle larger toward the end of May than those 
grown from seed planted in the open the last of April; and 
further: when a most unexpected and unheard of frost befell 
us toward the end of May, the asters grown in the open were 
untouched, while the tender house-bred ones were killed al- 
most without exception. I have worked out a better and 
much easier plan for growing annuals, which I will give in its 
proper place under Seeds. 
While these green things were cheering my heart indoors, I 
made careful diagrams for the dimensions and arrangements 
of beds in the new section. The frost was not yet out of the 
ground when I began afresh on the work outside, and each 
morning before the sun got high enough to melt them, I found 
those curious and beautiful crystal growths made by the mois- 
ture oozing out of wet soil in slender glittering filaments, each 
bearing, as a crown or blossom, a tiny patch of earth carried 
up from the place it sprang. A little corner was dug out of the 
rising slope so that the excavation was perhaps eighteen inches 
deep at the furthest extremity and tapered down to nothing 
as it reached the old garden. A stone wall was here laid three 
feet high before the ground began to rise, but tapered to eigh- 
teen inches where the bank was eighteen inches deep. This 
gave a uniform three-foot wall above the level of the new beds, 
which were dug out as before a foot or two deeper, enclosed 
with boards, and a thick layer of sods was spread evenly, 
which is said to prevent the heaving up of the earth in freez- 
