HOUSE AND GARDEN 
April, 
I 9 I 3 
and munchy, cried, “We are eating our 
first peas! My mouth's full of ’em now !’’ 
“That’s nothing,” we answered, “we’ve 
got our first mouthful all swallowed.” 
“Well, anyhow,” said our disappointed 
neighbor, “I called up first! Goodby.” 
How is that for a neck-and-neck finish 
at the tape ? 
As April waxes into May, the garden 
beds are a perpetual adventure in the ex¬ 
pected, each morning bringing some new 
revelation of old friends come back, and 
as you dig deep and prepare the beds for 
the annuals, or spade manure around the 
perennials, or set your last year’s plant¬ 
ings of hollyhocks, larkspur, foxgloves 
and campanulas into their places, you move 
tenderly amid the aspiring red stalks of 
the peonies, the Jason’s crop of green iris 
spears, the leaves of tulips and narcissus 
and dafifodils, the fresh green of tiny 
Sweet William plants clustered round the 
mother plant like a brood of chicks around 
the hen. You must be at setting them into 
borders, too, or putting the surplus into 
flats and then telephoning your less fortu¬ 
nate friends. One of the joys of a garden 
is in giving away your extra plants and 
seedlings. 
One morning the asparagus bed, already 
brown again after the April showers have 
driven the salt into the ground, is pricked 
with short tips. That is a luscious sight! 
Inch by inch they push up, and thick and 
fast they come at last, and more and more 
and more. My diary shows me that we 
ate our first bunch last year on May ninth. 
On that day. also, I learn from the same 
source, the daffodils were out, the Darwin 
tulips were budding, and we spent the af¬ 
ternoon burning caterpillars’ nests in the 
orchard — one spring crop which is never 
welcome, and never winter-killed ! At this 
date, too, we are hard at work spraying, 
and sowing the annuals out-of-doors in the 
seed beds, and planting' corn (the potatoes 
are all in by now), immediately following 
the plowing, which was delayed till the 
first of May by a belated snowstorm. Win¬ 
ter with us is like a clumsy person who 
tries over and over to make his exit from a 
room but does not know how to accom¬ 
plish it. It is a busy time, for no sooner 
are the annuals planted, and the vegetables, 
than some of the seedlings from the hot¬ 
beds have to be set out (such as early 
cosmos). and the perennial beds already 
have begun to bloom, and require cultiva¬ 
tion and admiration, and the flowers in the 
wild garden — hepaticas and trilliums and 
bloodroot and violets—are crying to be 
noticed, and, confound it all, here is the 
lawn getting rank under the influence of 
its spring dressing, and demands to be 
mowed! Yes, and we forgot to get the 
mower sharpened before we put it away 
in the fall. 
“May fifteenth” — it is my diary for 1911 
—"apple blossoms showing pink, and the 
rhubarb leaves peeping over the tops of 
their barrels this morning, like Ali Baba 
and the forty thieves.” 
Well, well, straight, juicy red stalks 
the length of a barrel, fit for a pie and the 
DPOGDESS 
Our wonderful nation is an ever-growing, ever- 
progressing one* We have planned, we have dug, we 
have plowed, we have builded, we have mined, we have 
made and we have sold* We have neither inherited 
our wealth nor have we laid tribute upon weaker nations* 
But behold! We are the richest of them all* 
Such is progress — the spirit that has made this nation the leader 
of nations. 
Progress demanded something to replace “Old Dobbin* and 
American genius replied with the first crude automobile* This evolved 
into the modern motor car* powerful and massive — its very hugeness 
making it swerve and skid* endangering life. So Progress demanded 
a safe-guard. Game the often-inadequate metal studs* and the first 
far-from-satisfactory rubber knobs* And Progress called once more. 
Then was invented the Republic Staggard Tread Tire* the tire 
that gave a real protection against skidding, an-all-to-be-desired brake 
control, and a much-increased m ileage—truly The Tire Perfect! 
And Progress looked, and was pleased. 
THE REPUBLIC RUBBER CO. 
YOUNGSTOWN. OHIO 
Republlo Staggard Tread Pat. Sept. 15-22, 1908 
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