Situation 23 



The tops dry up and crumble into dust, which, 

 forming valuable leaf mould, mulches and feeds 

 them during the next year's growth. 



During the summer insects have been busy 

 pollinating the blossoms. One has had a taste 

 from a yellow flower and thence danced over to 

 a red one, brushing the pollen of the first upon 

 the pistil of the second. Seeds have ripened and 

 scattered over the rocks into nooks and crannies 

 and the rain has washed the leaf mould and lava 

 dust over them. In the spring they throw up 

 their tender shoots, and lo! in August another 

 flower is born! It is neither red nor yellow. 

 Possibly, it is striped of both — possibly purple, 

 possibly white — but it is almost never like either 

 parent. 



Knowing this much concerning the home and 

 habit of the plant, it is perhaps easier to judge 

 how best to treat them in the higher stages of 

 their development. 



We must be guided by the fundamental prin- 

 ciples on which their life depends, but always 

 bear in mind that just as civilized man cannot 

 thrive on the food of the savage, so also the gar- 

 den dahlia must naturally be more exacting than 

 the wild as to its requirements. 



But dahlias do not always demand high 

 altitude. The sea-level dahlia farms on Cape 



