USEFUL FACTS AND PLEASANT GOSSIP. 
GARDEN WORK FOR INVALIDS. 
We fully believe there is nothing so good for invalids as work in the garden. Air, sunshine, 
fresh earth, and exercise accomplish wonders. We have known it many times to bring hope and 
health and joy to the hopeless, sick and sorrowing. Far better will it be found usually than a 
tedious and expensive journey for a change of air. A month’s work in the garden during the 
summer would be better for our business men than a trip to the watering-places or the mountains, 
while in this way they would escape the miseries of a summer vacation. A lady of Fall River, 
Mass., gives some good advice in the following note, happily founded on her own experience: 
Mr. Vick I have to send at this late day for the Floral Guide for 1875, and for last year also, enclosing 50 
cents, which seems ridiculous entirely when I think of the value of your delightful little publication. I should 
never have let it go by in this way, but I was obliged to spend the summer in the country last year, on account of 
health, and had no garden at all; and then this spring I didn't know but it would be just the same. My beautiful 
Hyacinths — those sweet Hyacinths that you sent me, with all those other bulbs, so many years ago, having 
been carefully planted at first, and cared for since, were still ready this spring, as every season since I have had 
them, to bring to my longing soul a fresh wonder of beauty and fragrance. O, they did seem, to sick and weary 
eyes, even more like the angels of God than ever before. My mind was drawn strongly toward the garden, and as 
we had decided to spend the summer at home, T sent for some of Vick’s seeds, and to a greenhouse for plants and 
little by little brought order ouc of my wilderness of weeds. And what I want to tell you, that you may tell others 
is this : I have seemed to gain in health much faster than last summer, though I was then in the purest and sweetest 
of air, in a pleasant, hilly country, and enjoying the simple luxuries of farm life. Tell the poor invalids Mr. Vick 
consumptives especially — tell them, if you can find room for it, somewhere in your dear little Floral Guide_ 
that flower gardening is not only a most delightful occupation, but the most health-giving of all earthly employments. 
Tell them to begin slowly, to work in the best part of the day, and while sitting upon the ground for weeding, &c. 
to have always a thick piece of carpet, or an old cushion first laid down, and even then to avoid wet or cold ground.' 
Work in the sunshine when not too hot, but if it seem at all oppressive, choose the shade. Let them give it a fair 
trial ; and if they begin with a love for flowers, see if it doesn’t bring them, besides the rich harvest of beauty and 
fragrance, a “panacea for all the ills that flesh is heir to,’’ — yes, and spirit, too, I had almost said, and truly. For 
driving away “ the blues,” we may challenge the world to produce its equal.— L. F. L. 
Treatment of Gladioli Seed.— Mrs. F. D. Gulliver, of Connecticut, wishes to know 
how to treat the seed of Gladiolus, and we presume the information will be valuable to others. 
The seed should be gathered as soon as ripe and kept in a dry place until spring. In early 
spring sow the seed in rows in a little bed in the garden. Surround this bed with a frame, say a 
box, a foot in height, without bottom or top. N.irrow, grass-like leaves will soon appear. Keep 
the bed free of weeds; do not let it become dry, but water in a dry time, and as soon as the 
sun gets pretty warm, along in June, cover the box with slats like laths, so that one-half will be 
covered, that is, the opening between each slat or lath the same width as the lath. This can be 
removed in a dull, wet time, but it is not usually necessary to remove it until cool, damp weather, 
usual in this latitude about the middle of September. Withhold water after this time and the 
leaves will begin to ripen and turn yellow. At the close of the growing season, a couple of 
weeks before hard frosts are expected, pull up the young plants, and little bulbs will be found in 
abundance from the size of a pea to that of a marble. Dry these in the sun and air a few days 
and then store them away to be planted the next spring. A few of the largest will flower the 
second summer, but the majority will require another season’s growth before they will be of 
flowering size. 
Early Egg Lettuce.—John P. Gonner, of Denver, Col., writes us that there is no Lettuce 
in the world as good for forcing as the Early Egg , and this we fully believe. He raised three 
crops between the first of February and the first of May, which sold readily for $2.00 per dozen. 
He also likes our White Spine Cucumber for forcing better than any other he has ever tried. It 
would bring in market $4.00 a dozen better than other kinds would a quarter that price. 
Success. —Mrs. Truesdale, of Peoria, Ill., writes that she took the first premium at the State 
Fair on Pansies, and never had a package of seed from us that failed to come up. This is quite 
as creditable to the lady as to the seeds, for some people receive the same seeds exactly, and 
manage in some way to prevent their coming up. 
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