MAKING SEED AND FLOWER BEDS 53 
them without coaxing. Since I have heard Miss 
Wiseman talk so much about feeding plants, it 
would make me sad to feel I had sown seeds in poor 
soil. I should think I was starving the flowers. 
A little way In front of the wall where the vines 
are to be planted, we are to have a long, narrow 
bed for tall flowers; and a number of smaller beds 
are to be made on the side of the triangle near the 
south veranda. Already, Joseph and Timothy 
have spent two days talking about and making these 
beds, and so I have not yet staked out the place for 
my roses. Joseph is to have nothing to do with 
the roses. They are to be under my care alone. 
Just as soon as this work of making the seed-bed 
and those of the triangle Is finished, Joseph will 
sow his seeds, for at last the spring really seems to 
be here. 
At our neighbours’ places beautiful tulips, daf- 
fodils and narcissi are now in bloom Instead of the 
snowdrops, the Siberian squills and the crocuses that 
came in March. Miss Wiseman has a border of 
narcissus poeticus which appears to me most lovely. 
Whenever Joseph sees them, his sorrow Is renewed 
that we have no spring flowers from bulbs at the 
Six Spruces. He does not intend to be without 
them another spring, and therefore Is now saving 
some of his garden money to buy bulbs this coming 
autumn. 
He has found out that gardeners must know how 
to take time by the forelock. Following their 
