Our number 1 desire is to please our customers. We believe 
that the best way to do this is to give them something different and 
something better—more than their money’s worth. But we must 
have some help from our good friends. Their letters with con- 
structive criticism help us to keep our strains balanced in color 
range so that the greatest number may be satisfied with Mastodon 
pansies. So drop us a line and tell us what changes you would 
like to see. Your suggestion may be the best one in our files. 
The Soil 
Soil for pansies should be well cultivated, fine and friable. 
A loamy soil, with some clay, and free of gravel, is perhaps the 
best but I have seen them thrive wonderfully on black sand of 
the sea coast. New land or a heavily sodded soil when subdued is 
splendid for pansies. It is hopeless to attempt growing fine pansies 
without fertilization. 
When to Sow Seed 
This depends, of course, on climatic conditions, but for early 
blooming stock for Spring sales, the seed should be sown in the 
Summer, early enough so that seedlings transplanted in the early 
or late Fall, according to the climate, will reach an almost ready- 
to-bloom stage as Winter sets in, so that with the first warm days 
of Spring gardening weather, they will come into bloom at once. 
It takes six to seven weeks during warm weather to produce 
sizeable seedlings, and four to six weeks more growing on, to be 
ready for Winter as above. 
Seedlings should not be thicker than 125 per sq.ft. and thinner 
is better. Large stocky seedlings will ‘‘make good,’’ while small, 
“leggy’’ stock will not. The big sowing season in the Northern 
States is July and August—in the Southern States and California, 
later, or earlier for winter blooms. 
Mr. E. O. Orpet, writing for the ‘‘Review”’ has this to say: 
“Many gardeners for their main crop sow some time in January 
or February. If seed is sown in flats of fine potting soil, and placed 
in a temperature of 55° at night, will give excellent plants, the best 
possible to set out Decoration Day, when those carried over from 
the Autumn sown seed will have about done flowering.”’ 
“AS soon as the young seedlings are up, and large enough to 
handle, they must be pricked off into flats at once, and by the end 
of March, they will be both large and strong enough to set out into 
a gentle hot bed, where they will come quickly and soon begin to 
flower.”’ 
Ais 
