II 
SPRING 
49 
tioned which it would be indeed sad to go 
without—the violet. 
Violets ! Deep blue violets ! 
April’s loveliest coronets ! 
There are no flowers grow in the vale, 
Kiss’d by the dew, woo’d by the gale, 
None by the dew of the twilight wet, 
So sweet as the deep blue violet. 
L. E. LandOn. 
Let every garden have its violets, for spring 
would not be perfect without them. But 
although nature scatters them in profusion in 
many of our woods and along the banks and 
ditches at the roadsides, they want some careful 
handling to get them as fair and fresh in a 
garden. To grow violets satisfactorily, whether 
it is the ordinary sweet-scented one or the 
grander Czar, or one of its still larger long- 
stalked relations (such as “Princess of Wales ”), 
they require good soil, and must not be too dry 
and scorched by the sun; and yet they should 
not be planted in such a shady place that the 
sun never reaches them, or they will not flower. 
If you are given even one plant, you could soon 
have a show of violets, for they make many 
“ runners ” or offshoots, and if these are picked 
off the parent plant, and are carefully planted in 
good soil and partial shade in the spring, they 
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