THE INGATHERING. 
“ It was autumn, and incessant 
Piped the quails from shocks and sheaves, 
And like living coals, the Apples 
Burned among the withering leaves.” 
—Longfellow. 
There are two periods, which, with me in my floricul- 
tural work, are specially trying, and these cover so much 
time that the intervening space is a very narrow one. 
The first period begins with the preparatory work of seed¬ 
sowing, in boxes, to be succeeded, as soon as the weather 
is sufficiently warm, by seed-sowing in the hot-bed. 
Such has been my lack of success with the former, in 
addition to the great care involved, that I decided last 
spring not to do it again; very few of the seeds came 
up, and those winch did were started, while those sown 
in the hot-bed six weeks later afforded far better seed¬ 
lings, and much more numerous, and the trouble was a 
mere trifle. As for sowing Pansy seed in March for 
early.blooming, that seems useless, for the seedlings 
springing from the self-sown seed in the open ground 
are worth far more than those babied in the house; but 
I find it a good plan to sow choice kinds in the hot-bed 
after the other plants are removed from it to the bor¬ 
der. I have a nice bed of these from which I removed 
all of the buds till September; they are my autumn 
bloomers, and are strong bushy plants, which will keep 
well, and be full of buds ere their snowy covering melts 
away. 
I have referred to a part of the preparatory work. 
The clearing up of the beds by the removal of all of the 
debris which had not been removedintheautumn; spad¬ 
ing up and jmtting in the dressing and thinning out of 
the bordering, whatever it may be, requires a good deal 
of hard work. Then the bedding out of the plants at 
various times; the hardiest ones first, the delicate ones 
not till all risk from “ cold snaps” is past. Nothing is 
gained by getting the house-plants into the ground be¬ 
fore warm weather is fully established; the change 
from our warm rooms to out-door life retards them if 
transplanted early. It is better to gradually accustom 
them to the change by exposing them several hours at 
first, either by taking them outside, or keeping a win¬ 
dow open upon them. It makes us always feel badly 
in the spring to see the thrifty-looking plants of our 
■window-garden drooping and changing their foliage to 
a dismal yellow, then dropping it altogether. Often 
this may, by the gradual process, be entirely obviated. 
It is not until the last of June, with the most of us New 
Englanders, that the work of bedding-out is completed, 
and by this time the fight with weeds has begun, and 
if rains are frequent, they are apt to get the best of it 
in the conflict. This warfare must be diligently kept 
up with us who raise large crops of chick-weed and 
“ pusley ” until August, when we may take a rest and 
see things besides weeds grow and thrive. The garden 
is now in the height of its beauty, but we long for 
rain. A whole mouth without rain. Not long our rest. 
These lovely flowers will dry up if we do not water 
them frequently. So the bedding-out and the weeding 
does not end our toil. 
Another month of drought and the cistern is low, the 
well is low; we cannot spare water enough to keep all of 
the plants alive, so we look over numerous beds to see 
what is of the most value for present and future results. 
We try to keep our Pompon Dahlias alive with now 
and then a drink, hoping each day there will come a 
shower, but they are thirsty things, and we have to 
give them up. We must keep the Gladiolus alive—we 
had many new ones we wanted to see bloom, but at last 
we cannot spare water for those, and only four have 
strength to blossom. Geraniums, dear old patient 
plants! we can neglect you sadly, and yet you bloom on 
and on. The Lilies—grand, sweet, lovely Lilies! how 
you laugh at the cloudless sky, and proudly lift up your 
heads, saying gleefully,” We will show you that we are 
no more dependent on the shower for our beauty, than 
the camel in the desert!” Two severe droughts in suc¬ 
cession, yet the Lilies never bloomed so proudly nor so 
largely as the two past seasons. But this is a long pre¬ 
lude to the ingathering. I said the space between the 
two trying periods was very brief. We hardly get our 
plants established in the border, free from weeds, and 
in a finely growing condition, before the ingathering 
begins. Our rarest, tenderest, latest bedded out must be 
the earliest garnered. Jack Frost is always stealthily 
peering around in September to see what he can devour, 
and he rarely gives timely warning, so we have to be on 
the alert. So lovely are the plants since revived by the 
rains; the garden is so ablaze with bloom, the opening 
buds so numerous, the day so warm, that we risk the 
most of them until the middle of the month; a cover 
ing at night secures them if there is any hint of frost. 
But, lo! a wintry blast is upon us; then the hurry ! 
We are shivering, hands cold as ice, wind anything but 
agreeable. How we wish then we had taken advantage 
of those sunny days. Soft, quiet days; and without all 
this bustle and rush we could have safely housed our 
pets. How glad we are when in putting down the 
spade we strike it against a pot. How easily taken up, 
and no roots disturbed. 
It has been my method for years to bed out all small 
plants in three and four-inch pots. Those allow suffic¬ 
ient room for root growth till taken up, and the plants 
bloom much more freely when somewhat root-bound. 
When ready to take them up, I have a large baking-pan 
at hand, and this I fill with the pots, first scraping from 
them the adhering soil, and removing the earth from 
the inside until there is quite a space for convenience in 
watering, and because there will be less to remove when 
repotted. As fast as I fill the pan I remove them to the 
stable, where there is a long, wide bench ready to re¬ 
ceive them. In this way I can dispose of many pots 
very rapidly. It is a simple thing I know to mention, 
yet there are many who take the pots just as they are 
removed from the ground, one in either hand, and carry 
them in this dirty condition and inconvenient manner, 
while with greater ease they might at once remove from 
eight to a dozen. 
I remove all of my small Geraniums quite early, be- 
