100 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



March, 1913 



wilderness with the ass and the dwarf and 

 the bag of needments — courage mixed 

 with trepidation. Far more intelligence I 

 think she had than Spenser's heroine, and 

 so long as we had a telephone and supplies 

 we should need to search for neither Red 

 Cross Knight nor lion; the telephone, I 

 thought would answer every purpose more 

 promptly and effectively. So does the 

 modern convenience deal hardly with 

 Romance. 



A slight touch of romance we had — a 

 very prosaic form. 



The morning of the day we left came a 

 box addressed to me; a rough wooden 

 packing box. They were about to open 

 it downstairs but Clarky had it brought 

 up and opened it herself in my room. 

 LIVE PLANTS, PERISHABLE, NO DE- 

 LAY was on the top in large, imperative 

 letters. I'm not fond of packing boxes; I 

 hate to be hurried. Two months ago I'd 

 have delayed all I pleased, and if the live 

 plants wanted to perish, they could perish. 

 Now, it was different. I was thinking of 

 coming alive myself. 



I made Clarky put the box on a chair 

 beside me after she had ripped off the cover, 

 and I leaned over and felt in the cool, damp, 

 springy moss until I found a bundle. 

 Wrapped closely in the moss it was and 

 wound about with a string — packed 

 like an Indian pappoose. A wooden label 

 was slipped under the string that secured 

 it on which was scrawled in pencil Viola 

 tricolor, Trimardeau. 



"What are they, Clarky?" I showed 

 her the bundle. 



"Pansies," she said. 



I searched again in the soft, cool pack- 

 ing, delightful it was to the fingers, and 

 found another bundle, and another — 

 six in all. 



"Did you order them, Clarky?" I asked. 



She shook her head. 



"Does any one downstairs know about 

 them?" 



"No." 



"I wonder who had the intelligence — " 

 I said to myself slowly after Clarky had 

 gone. Then I picked up one of the little 

 bundles again and opened it carefully and 

 looked at the stubby little plants with the 

 long, brown, sandy roots. 



"I like you — you queer, unpromising- 

 looking little things!" I remarked to the 

 pappoose-like bundle, "I like you heaps 

 better than if you were American Beauty 

 roses. They're so insultingly healthy and 

 prosperous. You don't look like much, 

 but yet there's life in you. We'll go up 

 to the country together, you and I. If 

 you can grow and amount to something, 

 perhaps I can." Then I put it back in 

 the box and looked again in the moss. 



At last I found in the bottom of the box 

 (it had been packed as the top, I suppose) 

 an envelope stained with the damp of the 

 packing. There was a card in it. 



"Partial shade, rich soil, and individual 

 attention. The long, dangling things are 



roots, Caroline, and should go in the 

 ground." 



I knew the writing, though I hadn't seen 

 it for a long time — Richard Protheroe's. 

 An odd fellow, but he had a lovely garden. 



"Can't we take them with us, Clarky?" 

 I asked when she came in for one of her 

 brief visits. "People take a kitten or a 

 pup in a basket; why not live plants?" 



"Surely," she said. "I'll find a basket. 

 We're traveling light." 



We were indeed to travel light. Every- 

 thing had been sent before. I didn't 

 know much about that; it was Clarky's 

 end. My room was kept as quiet as a 

 cloister, but I know bedding and cots were 

 sent, blankets and warm clothes a-plenty, 

 a hammock and a camp-kit. I wasn't 

 even to dress properly, just a dark skirt 

 and sweater over my night-dress, then a 

 long cloak and a soft hat, for I hadn't yet 

 been dressed and didn't want to get tired. 

 We were to take the sleeper from the Grand 

 Central; there was no change; I would 

 waken in New Hampshire, that was all. 

 Very neat and simple. 



There's a deal of difference between 

 traveling when you're ill, but yet a little 

 responsible, and the being simply toted; 

 an irresponsible bulk with no more thought 

 of what may happen than if you were a 

 bale of cotton. Being in the bale-of- 

 cotton'state of mind, I rather liked crossing 

 the city at night, the rapid blurring of 

 lights, the swift-moving motor; I liked it 

 when we crossed the bridge, where below 

 us lay the river, a strip of darkness flecked 

 with moving lights — spanned by fairy- 

 like arches of brilliance — on either side 

 of which rose great dim bulks like giant 

 castles, the lights blazing from innumerable 

 windows. I liked the flashing of the electric 

 signs where petticoats or the charms of 

 chewing gum were blazoned with a startling 

 distinctness that would have answered 

 for the Day of Judgment. I didn't mind 

 the Grand Central, nor the crowds that 

 were so close to the wheel chair. It felt 

 like going through a picture-book. I was 

 no more a part of it than that. Only the 

 pages turned so rapidly ! it was confusing. 

 Then, suddenly, the stuffy dimness of the 

 compartment and everyone shut out but 

 Clarky and me. 



"Well, do you like it?" she asked, after 

 she had made me comfortable. 



"Yes," I said, but my head was going 

 around like the wheels of the wheel chair, 

 and the people still kept going by, and my 

 heart was "chugging" like a just-cranked 

 automobile. So, being an accomplished 

 invalid, I took out Wordsworth and began 

 to read. In my head, of course. If 

 you've been ill long enough, you learn to 

 "turn on" verse or prose in your head, set 

 it going as if it were a mechanical toy, and 

 the immortal William W., as any neu- 

 rasthenic knows, is the prince of sedatives, 

 calm and placid with the large placidity 

 of a cow content in a succulent pasture. 

 So I "turned on" the Prelude — 



"In what vale 

 Shall be my harbor? Underneath what grove 



Shall I take up my home? and what clear stream 

 Shall with its murmur lull me into rest? 



The earth is all before me. With a heart 

 Joyous, nor scared of its own liberty " 



It ran along like the brook in my pasture. 

 So the stuffiness was forgotten, and the 

 loveliness to be was again present, and on 

 the viewless wings of poesy, as Keats has 

 it, I went up to the country far ahead of 

 the train. A most convenient method. 

 As for Clarky, she leaned back comfort- 

 ably in her corner, snapped on the electric 

 light, and opened the Evening Screamer, I 

 suppose by way of a farewell to New York, 

 and began to read. 



We were off. 



(To be continued) 



Plant Breeding For a Bigger 

 Hay Crop 



WHAT variety of timothy grass do 

 you raise? 



Oh yes, there are varieties of grass as well 

 as of corn, beans and sweet peas. In a few 

 years they will be on the market, thanks to 

 the New York Agricultural Experiment 

 Station at Cornell University, and it will 

 then behoove the hay grower to find out 

 which particular strain is best adapted to 

 his conditions. 



The Station has recently published Bulle- 

 tin 313 upon the results of its timothy breed- 

 ing experiments begun in 1903. At that 

 time 4,704 individual plants were raised in a 

 greenhouse, then planted outdoors, from 

 223 samples of seed collected all over the 

 United States and in eleven foreign coun- 

 tries. Variations were observed at once 

 involving the yield, vigor, quality of stem, 

 leaf and head, size, habits, rust resistance, 

 etc. Separate plants varied all the way 

 from fifteen to fifty-five inches in height, 

 from four to eighteen inches in diameter of 

 the clump, from six to two hundred and 

 fifty in the number of culms or stems to a 

 plant, and as much as eighteen days be- 

 tween the dates of blooming. 



By means of selection, crossing and 

 clonal or slip propagation there have now 

 been obtained seventeen new sorts that are 

 especially desirable. Two years' observa- 

 tion has shown that the average yield from 

 these varieties is 36$ per cent, greater than 

 that of ordinary timothy of the same age 

 under similar conditions. If such an in- 

 crease could be effected in the timothy 

 crop over the United States it would mean 

 an increased value in one yea 7- of some 

 $90,000,000. 



The Station is increasing its seed supply 

 of these varieties and plans to get it into 

 the hands of actual growers and dealers 

 as soon as possible. It cannot supply seed 

 in quantity to individuals at this time, 

 but then, you don't have to wait for 

 that. Write to Ithaca, N. Y, for the 

 bulletin and accordng to its directions 

 begin breeding your own improved timothy 

 seed. 



