4 



J. T. LOVETT, LITTLE SILVER, N. J. 



compost in the autumn, and forking it into the soil in the spring, (as directed before for new autumn 

 plantings) the size, beauty and quantity of bloom will be greatly increased. 



Quality of Plants. — As in other things, there is a great difference in the quality of plants 

 of Hardy Perennials— so vast a difference that "comparisons are odious." For example; a strong, 

 vigorous plant of almost any variety will j-ield a wealth of bloom the first year; the early flowering 

 kinds, in a few weeks from planting. On the other hand, a small plant of the same variety, if it does 

 not fail outright, (the chances are more than even that it will), must at best struggle along, producing 

 but a few sickly flowers late in the season. Herein is the Kurser} man's ''winter of discoment." It is 

 much less expensive to produce ih^'se small and immature plants than strong, well developed ones; 

 yet the poor ones come in direct competition in price with the hijjh-class grade — and the pity of it is 

 that but few who plant or wish to plant Hardy Perennials, are able to discriminate and determine of 

 whom they should buy. Just here, I wish to state that I grow all my Hardy Perennials without using 

 stimulants of any kind and without forcing. At the autumn exhibition of the American Institute 

 held in New York, in competition with many prominent growers of Hardy Perennials, I was awarded 

 first prize for " Best 50 varieties " of these flowers ; the highest prize given. Also at the Chrysanthe- 

 mum Show of the same Institute I was awarded " Two Special Prizes " for Hardy Perennials. These 

 prizes, however, I esteem of little value as compared with the fact that those who have bought of me 

 in years past continue to do so regularly and, in a great many instances, are so well pleased with re- 

 sults obtained that they induce their friends and neighbors to order of me also. 



LOOKING BACKWARD. 



As I sit in silence and alone, working upon my catalog, 



with papers and dust, with books and must, 

 Surrounding me like a cell ; 

 I scratch and think, then scratch in ink, 

 Trying my thoughts to tell ; 



My memory drifts back to the sixties, and O, how sweet those reveries are ! They come to me 

 as perfume of the Lily of the Valley and of Violets, borne from an unst-en world upon a cool, gentle, 

 summer's breeze. Again I am a boy, standing among the flowers I loved so well — as free from worry 

 and care as the birds that sang in the shrubbery or the Bunnies that playfully gamboled about my 

 primitive garden. How distinctly I remember the catalogs of B. K. Bliss, Brigg Bros., James Vick 

 and others — just how they looked, the illustrations, the very kind of type used in printing them — 

 books that I studied with more intense interest and keener pleasure than any works of fiction which I 

 have ever had the good fortune to read. Kntirely without expeiience and wiih no guide save the cat- 

 alogs referred to, I marvel at the success that attended my first attempts at floriculture ; for every- 

 thing lived and grew well ; even Verbenas from seed, which frequently fail in this enlightened day 

 with many a professional florist, assisted by every modern facility. From the instructions in Vick's 

 Floral Giaide, as the great Vick styled his catalog, I constructed a hot-bed and planted the seeds at 

 the time and in the manner therein told. I remember too, how my boy friends poked fun at me for 

 spending my pin money for flower seeds, and how they laughed still louder when I sent a dollar and 

 a half from my home in Pennsylvania to B. K. Bliss way up at Sprinfigeld, Mass., for a peck of a new 

 potato ; and how I realized the following spring, more than eighty dollars from the product. It was 

 my first commercial venture in gardening and proved again the adage, "He who laughs last laughs 

 best," These delightful memoiies of my early experiences come over me like a flood but I must put 

 them aside. Before doing so I beg leave to refer again to the catalog of the king of American Seed- 

 men an 1 catalog publishers, the beloved and lamented James Vick, whom in later years I learned to 

 be so good, so generous and so truly a gentleman. In his Catalog or Guide, fillt-d from cover to cover 

 with inspiration for the lover of gardening, he would print letters from patrons in goodly numbers 

 and in one of them appeared the following lines: 



" Thank God for the beautiful flowers. " They speak of the heaven above us, 



That blossom so sweetly ami fair; Where angels are singing His praise ; 



They garnish this strange life of ours, Where dwell many dear ones who love us. 



And brighten our paths everywhere. Who've faded from earth's dreary ways." 



My younger brother and playmate had joined the angel throng shortly before the little poem 

 appeared and to my youthful mind, nothing ever written seemed so beautiful. That was more than 

 forty years ago and I have often wondered who wrote it. Doubtless the hand that penned lho?e words 

 has long since ceased its labors and the author joined the host, "Where dwell many dear ones who 

 love us." If what is here written, should by chance, meet the eye of any one who can give me the 

 name of the composer, I would be grateful indeed, for the information. J. T. L. 



