THE LURE OF THE GARDEN 
Should one of these miserable catalogues be mislaid, 
the entire household is turned upside down. Unkind 
accusations and violent reproaches are poured out on 
the various members of the unhappy family; the lost 
catalogue, it appears, contained data of the highest im¬ 
portance, priceless scribblings on the margins, infor¬ 
mation and observation worth their weight in gold. 
Despair and suspicion reign until the thing is found; 
and the difficulty of finding a lost magazine or catalogue 
is one of the awe-inspiring, unexplainable facts of exis¬ 
tence. There is no spot too small for it to crawl into, 
no place so obvious but it can lie there unobserved. If 
there is a fire within reach, it is certain to have betaken 
itself into the hottest portion, and to have spared no 
pains in getting its important parts burned. If there 
is an old closet to be found that has not been opened 
for years, it is invariably discovered to be jammed 
with such lost publications, though naturally such dis¬ 
covery is not made until the time of its usefulness is 
past. 
Another peril in the seed-annual habit lies in the de¬ 
pression itsindulgence is sure to bring about. No amount 
of experience teaches their victim that they are pure 
fiction, based on a perverted imagination, of lying and 
unstable character. The pictures they contain, like the text 
that babbles rapturously through them, have no relation 
to the actual product of root and seed as they are planted 
in earthly gardens. Yet, season after season, their 
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