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A SMALL GARDEN. 
I am going to write this for the benefit of those 
who have but a few hours during the week to devote 
to flowers, but who would like to have a small garden 
of their own. To such I will give the benefit of my 
experience; it has not been a very long one as yet, 
but has been very satisfactory so far. 
I am a farmer’s wife, aud have very little time to 
spare for out-door work ; but I like flowers, and so I 
made time to have a few. I had a small garden made 
and commenced to experiment. I began with flowers 
that were easily grown, and the result was very satisfac¬ 
tory. How well I remember that first garden. There 
were Asters and Balsams, Stocks and Pansies, with a 
Verbena, and two or three other varieties of flowers. 
And here I must stop and tell about my Balsams. I 
had twelve different colors, and they were as double as 
some varieties of Roses. And such Pansies ! I have 
never been able to raise any such since. They will 
give any one who begins to raise them as much if not 
more pleasure than greenhouse plants, and you have 
this assurance, if you save seeds from Pansies and 
plant them year after year, you can get almost un¬ 
limited colors, for they very seldom come up the same 
color of blossom twice. 
The best time to plant the seed is early in the fall 
so they can get an early start before freezing weather 
comes; then when frost begins to come, cover, with 
evergreen boughs or straw, then in the spring after 
danger from severe frost is over, uncover your Pansies. 
Prepare your bed where you wish to transpla nt them 
set them a foot apart, and if you can have a bed made 
where it is partially shaded from the sun, your Pansies 
will like it all the better. You can hardly get the 
ground too rich for them. 
Balsams, Stocks, and Asters will find no fault if you 
give them rich ground, but will bloom all the better 
for it. Perhaps the reader will think I have given too 
much space to the description of Pansies. If I have, 
this must be my excuse, for next to Roses there is no 
flower that I admire and love so much as the cheerful 
little Heart’s-ease. 
After you have tried once and succeeded, you will 
want to venture farther, and will begin to study the 
catalogues to find varieties that you can plant; you 
will be tempted by many choice varieties, but my ad¬ 
vice is to take the common ones at first; you will find 
many beautiful kinds among them. 
It is a very common mistake with beginners to look 
at their catalogues and read the description of choice 
varieties and make their selections of such as the most 
experienced gardeners have to take great pains with 
to be successful. The result is disappointment to the 
amateur gardener, and this verdict passed on the un¬ 
fortunate seedsman that furnished the seed, “ He is a 
regular fraud, and I will never buy of him again,” 
when in nine cases out of ten it was the beginner’s in¬ 
experience that caused the failure, for it is very much 
like beginning to read: you must first learn your let¬ 
ters, then to put them together to form words, and 
then you will keep on learning. So with flowers— 
there is something new to learn about them all the 
time. And you will be surprised how much time you 
will find for their culture, for the work in the open air 
will give you renewed strength and health, and con¬ 
sequently the work in-doors will go off all the more 
quickly, and there will be less doctor’s bills to pay, 
and the overtaxed nerves will get a better rest than 
any medicine can give. 
Perhaps some will say, “ I would like flowers, but 
I can’t take the trouble to plant seeds every year.” If 
you don’t wish to plant seeds, send for ever-blooming 
Roses, and you will have flowers from year to year 
without planting seeds. 
But you say, ‘‘ I have no place to keep them in 
winter.” To such I say, keep them out of doors in 
the beds where they have grown through the summer. 
You may think the winter will kill them, but it will 
not if you cover them properly. In the first place, be¬ 
fore it becomes too cold, cut off half of their branches, 
then have some boards fixed to keep the covering in 
place. The way my boards are fixed is on all four 
sides of the bed, making a kind of box ; then put 
branches over your Roses; then leaves and something 
to keep the leaves from blowing away. The branches 
will keep the leaves from settling too close to the 
Rose bushes, and so rotting the stalk if there should 
come a heavy rain. 
I have nineteen varieties out this winter; among 
them a Marchal Neil, and I would say here that it is 
as easy as any Rose to grow aud blossom, for this 
summer I had some of the most magnificent blossoms 
and buds on it; it fully sustained its reputation ot be¬ 
ing the most magnificent Rose grown. 
My Roses blossomed so well that I ventured to send 
a basket of them to the Horticultural Fair in the fall, 
and they received a premium. 
Among the varieties that I have is a green Rose. I 
sent for it out of curiosity; it is very sweet-scented 
and a strong-growing Rose, and blossoms true to 
name every time. I had blossoms on my Rose bushes 
until frosty nights came and killed them. They re¬ 
quire rich ground and frequent stirring of the soil, and 
plenty of moisture. 
If you have not money to spend after the first that 
you buy, and do not object to having two or three of 
the same kind, they are easily raised from cuttings, and 
in this way you can have as many bushes as you wish. 
The easiest and surest way is to take a glass dish of 
any kind, fill it with sand, put your slips in the sand, 
after taking off the large leaves, and keep the sand 
wet enough so that water will stand on top ; put it in 
the sun or anywhere that it will get plenty of heat, 
and you will find that you can root Roses as easily as 
any other plant. 
I have a friend who has rooted eighteen this winter, 
so I do not write this without proot of its being a suc¬ 
cessful way to root them. I have rooted some in chip 
dirt, hut I like the sand method better, as it is quicker 
aud a more certain way. 
To the flower gardener, that prefers raising flowers 
from seed instead of roots, I would say, don’t forget to 
include Sweet Alyssum, Phlox, and Petunias in your 
list of seeds. S. E. P. 
HOW TO START FLOWERS AND PLANTS. 
A correspondent of The Journal of Health , after 
seeking for many years to find some simple way of 
starting slips, plants, etc., with bottom heat, without 
the aid of experience, greenhouses, or outdoor hot 
beds, at last hit on a plan which works like a charm, 
and thus writes about it: 
“ It is just a delight at this season of the year, when 
every growing thing responds to the influences of the 
season and only wants, while waiting for May, a little 
boosting to send it climbing skyward, to watch the 
cuttings grow and the seeds spring up. Many arrange¬ 
ments to suit place aud means could he suggested. 
Having a large spare v ash boiler, we placed it in the 
south kitchen window, so that its top comes to the 
window sill, resting it on two inverted flower pots. 
Three good sized, old sheet iron baking pans well filled 
with clean creek sand were put across the boiler, which 
had been filled with water at about 90°. The sand 
was duly moistened and in it set all sorts of cuttings 
of plants for the flower border, and on it were sowed 
seeds of those plants and vegetables which we wish to 
start early. Sometimes we set the cuttings in thumb- 
pots of light soil and plunge these in the sand. When 
all was arranged, we just lighted a safe brass kero¬ 
sene lamp and placed it on the floor under the boiler, 
and we keep it burning night and day, and nothing- 
can he jollier. 
The water is kept at about even temperature, the 
evaporation from the sand and the warmth and moisture 
from the kitchen range and the abundant light- from 
the broad window supply all needed conditions of 
growth. The seedlings that start in the sand we 
prick out as soon after germination as we please, into 
boxes of earth, setting them into other windows when 
there is not room for them over the tank. Some¬ 
times we start our Tuberoses here and some on a 
sheet iron shelf suspended over the range, which is 
kept burning night and day to supply hot water for 
the chambers. 
We thus get a few Pansies, Phloxes, Nasturtiums 
and even Sweet Peas to put out in vases, balcony 
boxes and other sheltered places, very early, aud make 
very much longer the blossoming season, which is 
quite an object in our climate. We have found it a 
great luxury to gather the brightest and sweetest of 
Painted-lady Peas in April and May, and mingle with 
Geraniums and Heliotropes from the windows, to send 
to our friends as a delightful surprise. With us Peas 
will not do well unless started early in the house or 
planted in a trench in late autumn, and heavily cov¬ 
ered over with litter until growing time in the spring. 
We grow four or five tomatoes, pricking them from 
the seed-pan into tin cans and have them in blossom 
when it is time to set them in the garden, and thus 
get ripe fruit very early. Ornamental window boxes 
for sitting-room and parlor can be arranged to hold 
water in the bottom, and this kept warm by concealed 
lamps.” 
A Giant Geranium. —A gentleman in our town, 
(says The Journal of Health, Danville, N. Y.), had, 
standing on his piazza last summer, a Geranium im¬ 
mense in its size, aud prolific of its great trusses of 
double scarlet flowers. It had been grown the winter 
before in the south hay window of his sitting-room 
and tended by himself. The young plant was set 
in a rustic basket, the bowl of which holds nearly a 
bushel of dirt. This was a mixture of cultivated 
black muck taken from a corn-field, garden earth and 
thoroughly decomposed manure, in about equal pro¬ 
portions. It grew rapidly, taking a gallon of water 
dav by day. As soon as danger from freezing was 
past it was set out, and during the summer averaged 
near a hundred trusses of brilliant flowers, often twenty 
five spent trusses would he cut from it of a morning, 
and it made such growth that when taken into the 
house in autumn, branches six feet in length had to 
he cut from it.. This is almost equal to California 
growth. 
