164 MY GROWING GARDEN 



and the other disporting the best flowers of a 

 strain grown by a speciahst in Massachusetts. 

 Honors are about even between them, though the 

 Massachusetts bed is hkely to go into the winter 

 all blooming and happy, because it was cut down 

 once in summer, and very carefully fertilized then 

 with that powerful tonic, hen manure. Let me say 

 to any gardener growing pansies, that prosperity 

 in bloom and much good manure go together. 

 When there has been enough manure applied in 

 the ground, just put in, and on, as much again, 

 and take notice of the result. 



Few garden makers realize, I think, that the 

 ordinary pansy of our pleasure, Viola tricolor, is 

 actually a perennial, and a nearly hardy perennial 

 at that. In England it is grown from cuttings and 

 kept alive from year to year. In the Breeze Hill 

 garden the survivals are usually of self -seedlings, 

 though one year it happened that a small group of 

 very good pansies Vv^as heavily fertilized late in 

 summer, and all the "leggy" stems cut off. A fine 

 fresh growth with prompt flowers resulted. By 

 accident, rather than by intention, this group of 

 pansies was given a protection of coarse refuse 

 and manure. In the very early spring the pansies 

 again began business, and the individual flowers 

 the second season were fully equal to the best of 



