the hundred rate" or a hundred of a mixture. Just ponder for a 

 moment on what your sensation must be when you realize that all 

 those shimmering white Foxglove rockets out there under the sil- 

 very rays of the moon were grown by you, really you, and all those 

 hundreds of swaying Columbine beauties have been raised from the 

 shiny black seed you yourself have gathered from your initial 

 stock. Perhaps a mixed dozen of long-spurred hybrids which had 

 produced half a thousand fertile seed. I have known a constitu- 

 tionally delicate woman stand for hours at a time, cheeks and lips 

 red, her eyes shining with delight in the work of transplanting and 

 pressing and petting those wobbly baby green things into gay 

 little pots, using sweet care not to strangle with too hard a pres- 

 sure their tender little necks. 



Perhaps you will think I exaggerate greatly when I insist that 

 ten thousand seedlings are but little more work or play, as you 

 will — than a mere hundred or two. Unless you have had the joyous 

 experience you simply cannot know how easily we may grow great 

 quantities of annuals and certain biennials, and even perennials 

 if we start early enough, because there are perennials that will 

 bloom the first Summer if seed are sown in the early Spring. 



Just because seeds are not costly we should not waste them, or 

 permit them to be wasted by sowing them too thickly. Always 

 sow seed thinly. I have seen seeds sown in the open garden that 

 I feel certain were sown with a spade, and which resulted in such a 

 mass of plants that no sunshine could possibly penetrate to them. 

 And they were so dense that thinning was quite impossible, with 

 the result that the entire bed had to be uprooted. Of course we 

 should sow more seed than the actual number of plants we desire, 

 because (unless by a miracle) some of the seeds will not germinate. 

 I know that many rules have been given for the sowing of seed, 

 one that I recall is that "three times the diameter of a seed is the 

 proper depth to plant or sow seed," etc., etc. However, I have 

 never tried sowing seed by any fixed rule, so I cannot say that it 

 is not a good rule to follow. Some of the small seed, when I sow 

 them in flats, I pick up with tweezers and place them the distance 



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