able, one purple and the other blue and neither of them six 
inches high, they make wonderful sheets of color under the early 
flowering Azaleas; Columbines of all kinds, the old-fashioned 
and now neglected early flowering Peonies, such as tenui folia 
and officinalis and also three plants that we often see in English 
gardens and seldom in our own, be it said to our shame, as they 
are natives here. These three neighbors of ours are the Foam 
flower, Tiarella cordifolia, Mertensia, the blue Lung-wort, and 
the Quamash, Camassia Cusicki. 
The Alum root and all its new hybrids; the Iceland Poppy, 
the Globe-flower and the early German Irises all work in easily. 
I have purposely left out all mention of the spring blooming 
broad-leaved Evergreens, the Rhododendrons and their allies 
as they belong in a rather different division, so I will close with 
a parting word of advice to you to try and find some spot how- 
ever restricted, where you can make a start on your spring 
garden. 
There is no country place too small for one although acres 
can be covered with spring trees and shrubs without the initial 
expense or the upkeep being very large. Probably the most 
wasteful form of spring gardening was the old-fashioned kind, 
where a new lot of early flowering Dutch Tulips were planted 
in the beds each autumn. The Poet's Narcissus if planted in 
moist places increases rapidly and so do many sorts of Daffodils. 
I suppose we are all fond of thinking what we will do when 
we grow to -be really old, but as this period seems to recede as 
one approaches it, I may never get the bulb farm on which I 
propose to end my days. Perhaps the Daffodil craze which is 
now convulsing horticultural England may come over to this 
country ; we may get rid of the Narcissus fly and I may succeed 
in raising a variety which will bring not only glory and fame 
but the golden reward which a gardening friend of mine in 
England excitedly assured me had been achieved by one of his 
clerical friends in Devonshire. 
(The Editor wishes the author of this charming paper would send his 
or her name to the Office. The original is in the Garden Cltjb of America 
Library — unsigned. ) 
OCTOBEE MOENING. 
October is brown 
In field and row — 
Yet golden glow, 
Purple Asters 
And ruddy oaks 
Sumach spreading 
Crimson cloaks, 
Apples red 
And pumpkins gold — ? 
Perhaps its gayer 
To be old ! Marjorie Allen Seiffert. 
16 
