MISS WISEMAN’S SUGGESTIONS 27 
At another part of Miss Wiseman’s place, Jo- 
seph saw that the men had dug a deep trench and 
that seed packages were lying near it on the ground. 
He had heard of no seeds being planted out-of- 
doors as yet, so he thought they must be grass seed, 
and he wondered if the grass would come up and 
turn green by the time the birds had finished their 
nests. He did not like to appear ignorant about 
such things before Mr. Bradley, the head gardener, 
so he said very jauntily: 
“It’s just the right time to plant grass seed.” 
“Is it?” Mr. Bradley replied. “We were 
thinking it was the season for putting in sweet 
peas.” 
Then Little Joseph asked a great many ques- 
tions: why Mr. Bradley dug the trench twO' feet 
deep — for it seemed to him that the plants would 
have to climb a long way before getting out of the 
earth — and why he had turned the sods taken from 
the top of the trench upside down, laid them at its 
bottom, and then spread them over with manure. 
“That is rotted cow’s manure,” Mr. Bradley 
answered. “It settles down after it has been wet, 
and makes the earth rich for the roots to sink into.” 
Joseph then saw the men fill the trench nearly to 
the top with a rich-looking soil made of old ma- 
nure, garden loam, and earth from the woods. He 
saw them pat it down firmly. They then made a 
furrow for the seeds about six inches deep, and 
planted them an inch apart. Mr. Bradley told 
