New Years Day! And with the fresh-turned page of 1920, all piant 
bright with promise, came that most promising of all literature, a Material 
Seed Catalogue! Nothing else comes to me by mail that gives me 
quite the thrill I get from the first catalogue. I devour its contents, 
gloat over its monstrosities, believe its wildest statements (yes, Mr. 
Phillpotts, even to the length of cucumbers), take it to bed with me 
at night, and dream that I possess each pictured beauty. For me, 
the spring has come! 
Alas, this year my ardour cooled at the first page, — the High 
Cost of Living has lifted many of my favorites to dizzy heights. The 
better seeds have soared, but that can be endured, for most of us 
plant many more seed than we need to plant — but Gladioli, think of 
it, 100% increase in the price of the one I love the best, and almost 
as great a rise in the price of my other favorites. The Galtonia, 
usually called Hyacinthus candicans in our catalogues, is offered in 
this catalogue for just five times as much as I paid for it last year. 
Galtonia is one of the loveliest plants we can grow for mid and 
late-summer blooming. It occupies little root space, and its long 
amaryllis-like leaves are a beautiful green all summer. In late July 
the straight, tall, graceful spike of blossoms, more lilce Snowdrops 
than Hyacinth flowers, is one of the most admired inhabitants of the 
garden. My soil is hea\y clay, and we seldom have snow all winter, so 
I have given up trying to call it a hardy perennial, and treat it like a 
Gladiolus, except that I plant all the bulbs as early in the spring as 
possible, instead of planting for succession. I like it better in groups 
than singly, and I take the same precaution to have the same propor- 
tion of large, medium and small size bulbs in each group that I do in 
planting Gladioli. Then I am reasonably sure that the groups will 
have about the same flower value at the same time. I take them up, 
as I do Gladioli, after the first heavy frost, and store them in baskets, 
in a frost-proof cellar. I have never saved the off-shoots, but with 
the tremendous increase in cost of the large bulbs, I shall certainly try 
to do so in the future 
Some of the seedsmen, among them Vaughan in Chicago, and 
Farquhar in Boston, list seed of Annual Holly-hock. According to 
Bailey, the Holly-hock is biennial or perennial, depending on the 
climate and soil in which it is grown, but if sown early enough, will 
bloom the first year from seed. A large proportion of the Holly-hocks 
I have grown as annuals have lived and bloomed a second season, so 
no doubt Bailey is right. I am very fond of Holly-hocks, and depend 
on them for certain effects in the garden. For years I struggled with 
each and every remedy for the ruinous rust, but all to no avail, until 
I discovered the annual Holly-hock advertised in a seed catalogue. 
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