56 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens 
bottom dressing, and had about seventy-five varieties under 
way—I thought. Many rows came up and my heart was 
glad; then a drought befell us, and grasshoppers were sore in 
the land, and katydids and crickets found my tender greens 
fresh and appetizing, and again I saw young life mowed down 
by the relentless sickle of Fate. I went out ten times a day to 
shoo the ravaging horde away. Then I covered the frames 
closely with cheese-cloth, only to find at any hour of the day 
a couple of dozen fat sleek crickets basking under the cool 
shade, eating at their leisure. So, droughty as it was, I trans- 
planted everything that was large enough to risk, sowed more 
seeds in the bare rows, and played Providence to the remain- 
ing nurslings that were too tiny to be lifted. In the autumn 
the wind drifted the leaves into the cold frames and I left the 
nursery, well content to have so good a shelter provided. 
The following spring I hurried home from the South, eager 
to see how the little things throve under their deep blanket of 
leaves. When I reached those beds I stood by veritable 
graves. I had decided not to cover them with sashes because 
of the heavy snows that pile up five and even six feet on the 
level, and I feared that the plants would suffocate and the 
sashes to my frames be ruined. And there were my sunken 
beds submerged under a foot of water that had melted from 
a recent snowfall, while the earth frozen solid under the 
blanket of leaves prevented it from sinking in. There were no 
funerals, though the dead from drowning were unnumbered. 
Another winter I tried covering the cold frames with boards; 
weighted down with stones to keep them in place; but I leave 
home too early in winter and return too late in the spring 
to give them proper attention. Everything was moldy. or 
rotted, and I saved but little. I discovered in the spring, when 
the beds were thoroughly overhauled, why they had suffered 
so from drought the previous summer. Forest trees over 
