In answer to another correspondent who asked me to recommend some thoroughly reliable fertilizer, I advised "old cow-manure." Back came a letter, saying I had neglected to state _how old_ the cow ought to be!

But the funny things are not all said by our correspondents. I lately came across an article credited to a leading English gardening magazine in which the statement was made that a certain kind of weed closely resembling the Onion often located itself in the Onion-bed in order to escape the vigilance of the weed-puller, its instinct telling it that its resemblance to the Onion would deceive the gardener! Is anyone foolish enough to believe that the weed knew just where to locate itself, and had the ability to put itself there? One can but laugh at such "scientific statements," and yet it seems too bad to have people humbugged so.

A woman writes: "I don't care very much about plants. I never did. But almost everybody grows them, nowadays, and I'd like to have a few for my parlor, so as to be in style. You know the old saying that 'one might as well be out of the world as out of fashion.' I wish you'd tell me what to get, and how to take care of it. I want something that will just about take care of itself. I don't want anything I'll have to bother with."

My advice to this correspondent was, "Don't try to grow plants."

The fact is, the person who doesn't grow them _out of love for them_ will never succeed with them, therefore it would be well for such persons not to attempt their culture. This for the plant's sake, as well as their own. Plants call for something. Plants ask for something more than a regular supply of food and water. They must have that sympathy,--that friendship--which enables one to understand them and their needs, and treat them accordingly. This knowledge will come through intuition and from keen, intelligent observation, such as only a real plant-lover will be likely to give. Those who grow plants--or _attempt_ to grow them--simply because their neighbors do so will never bring to their cultivation that careful, conscientious attention which alone can result in success. The idea of growing a flower because "it is the fashion to do so!"

It may seem to some who read what I have said above that I do not encourage the cultivation of flowers by the ma.s.ses. That's a wrong conclusion to jump at. I would like to have everybody the owner of a flower-garden. Those who have never attempted the culture of flowers are very likely to develop a love for them of whose existence, of the possibility of which, they had never dreamed. A dormant feeling is kindled into activity by our contact with them. But these persons must begin from a better motive than a desire to have them simply because it is "the style." The desire to succeed with them _because you like them_ will insure success. Those who would have flowers because _it is the fashion_ to have them may experience a sort of _satisfaction_ in the possession of them, but this is a feeling utterly unlike the pleasure known to those who grow flowers _because they love them_.

I am not a believer in the "knack" of flower-growing in the sense that some are born with a special ability in that line, or, as some would say, with a "_gift_" that way. We often hear it said, "Flowers will grow for her if she just _looks_ at them." This is a wrong conclusion to arrive at in the cases of those who are successful with them. They do something more than simply "look" at their plants. They take intelligent care of them. Some may acquire this ability easier and sooner than others, but it is a "knack" that anyone may attain to who is willing to keep his eyes open, and reason from cause to effect. Don't get the idea that success at plant-growing comes without observation, thought, and work. All the "knack" you need to have is a liking for flowers, and a desire to understand how you can best meet their special requirements.

In other words, the _will_ to succeed will find out the _way_ to that result.

Just now, while I am at work on the last pages of this book, comes an inquiry, which I answer here because the subject of it is one of general interest: "Every spring our Crimson Rambler Roses are infested with thousands of green plant-lice. The new shoots will be literally covered with them. And in fall the stalks of our Rudbeckia are as thickly covered with a _red_ aphis, which makes it impossible for us to use it for cut-flower work. Is there a remedy for these troubles?"

Yes. Nicoticide will rid the plants of their enemies if applied thoroughly, and persistently. One application may not accomplish the desired result, because of failure to reach all portions of the plant with it, but a second or a third application will do the work.

By way of conclusion I want to urge women with "nerves" to take the gardening treatment. Many housewives are martyrs to a prison-life. They are shut up in the house from year's end to year's end, away from pleasant sights, sounds, fresh air, and sunshine. If we can get such a woman into the garden for a half-hour each day, throughout the summer, we can make a new woman of her. Work among flowers, where the air is pure and sweet, and sunshine is a tonic, and companionship is cheerful, will lift her out of her work and worry, and body and mind will grow stronger, and new life, new health, new energy will come to her, and the cares and vexations that made life a burden, because of the nervous strain resulting from them, will "take wings and fly away." Garden-work is the best possible kind of medicine for overtaxed nerves. It makes worn-out women over into healthy, happy women. "I thank G.o.d, every day, for my garden," one of these women wrote me, not long ago. "It has given me back my health. It has made me feel that life _is_ worth living, after all. I believe that I shall get so that I live in my garden most of the time. By that I mean that I shall be thinking about it and enjoying it, either in recollection or antic.i.p.ation, when it is impossible for me to be actually in it. My mind will be there in winter, and I will be there in summer. Why--do you know, I did a good deal more housework last year than ever before, and I did it in order to find time to work among my flowers. Work in the garden made housework easier.

Thank G.o.d for flowers, I say!"

Yes--G.o.d be thanked for flowers!