38 PIGTOBIAL PBAGTIGAL VEGETABLE GROWING. 



Chapter 5»— Cbat about Seeds* 



The man who wanders into a seed shop in spring to buy an ounce of 

 Parsnip seed rarely realises what a mine of interest is packed away 

 in the drawers, bags, and pigeon-holes. The seed shop is a store- 

 house of beautiful and wonderful treasures, more brilliant, to the 

 imaginative man, than any bazaar. To most people it is a rather 

 untidy place with a curious, dry, paper-and-canvas smell ; to him it is 

 a garden of beautiful sights and sweet odours. 



There is some seed the scent of which, singularly enough, is more 

 agreeable than that of its flowers. T love to bury my face in a bag of 

 Nemophila insignis— it is so piquant and delicious. Mignonette 

 seed, on the other hand, has little perfume, and that not altogether 

 suggestive of the garden. 



Amongst vegetables. Onion seed carries with it more than a 

 suspicion of the characteristic smell of this pungent esculent. 

 Parsley is unmistakable, and so is Carrot, though I do not mean to 

 convey that they smell exactly like the growing crops. 



Seeds are very pleasant things to be associated with. It is true 

 that there are occasional disagreeable tasks connected with them. 

 For instance, Eadish seed when stored in bulk becomes attacked by a 

 disease which shows itself in a fine pinkish powder, and a week of 

 sifting to get rid of this pest is not the nicest business in the world. 

 But in the main seeds are agreeable to handle, and over and above 

 that there is the interest inseparably associated with them as 

 potential plants. It is absorbing to reflect on the mass of stem, 

 leaves, flowers, and possibly fruits packed away in these tiny spheres. 

 You packet up, let us say, Sweet Peas, and straightway your 

 imagination tells you of the beautiful gardens these tough little 

 balls will help to adorn. It is winter in the seed shop, a little 

 inclined to be dreary, perhaps cold ; but the packet in your hand 

 takes you away a- wheel into a Somersetshire lane, and between tall 

 trees you catch a glimpse of a lovely garden ; and then, as packet 

 after packet falls from your busy fingers, you flit from county to 

 county, with gardens, gardens everywhere. You are in fruitful Kent, 

 in sunny Norfolk, in a Cumberland dale, in a Highland glen, in 

 sweet Killarney. And all this magic is worked by the seeds. 



Of the early days of my horticultural training, one of the happiest 

 memories is an association, lasting for several pleasant years, with 

 seeds, and if I could write eloquently enough of the wondrous 

 interest and charm which seeds possess, fewer of them would be 

 flung into the soil as so many are now— like stones out of a cart 



