Vermont farmer. [volume] (Newport, Orleans County, Vt.) 1870-1877, 1873-02-21
3ortitulture.
THE JOURNAL OF INGLEsIDE, No4
BY HORTENsIUs.


The Spring Catalogues
Of the seedsmen and florists are coming in
nowadays, offering at our own post-ofices
seeds, bulbs, and plants for the flower gar
dens, and seeds, tubers, etc., for the kitchen
garden and the farm and if we would have
our seeds at hand when we wish to use them,
it may be for starting early plants in hot
beds, etc.,-the earlier we send our orders
the better. In the seed houses orders are
generally filed in rotation, and in the largest
of these, during the busy season, the clerks
sometimes fall several weeks behind the or
ders, SO rapidly do they accumulate at that
time. The rivalry of the seedsmen is each
year making their catalogues more full and
interesting, and they are becoming more and
more attractive with their increased number
Of fine engravings, Autographs, and chrom os.
What power in the land for good have
these catalogues become, as they find their
way yearly to almost every rural home.
w hdb dpOotlSS VI
among all our people love Of gardening,
and instructing even the backwoodsman or
the frontiersman in all the details of this
nicer cultivation. What missionaries of for.
iculture, pushing taste and refinement to the
embcllishing of our homes with all the hues
and forms of beauty in flowers and plants. We
find fascination in looking them over even
in the dead of winter. We dig the SOIL and
SOW seeds, and watch their growth in imagin-
alton, and our hopeful plans for summer
work while away many long evening, when
the bleak winds howl drearily without.
But after the March sun mounts high and
warm, and the sap beginS to stir in the bare
trees, our anticiPations have grown to enthu-
siasm if not to furor, and we are out on
sunny days, crowding upon the retreating
snow-lne in our eagerness to put into effect
the devices Of the winter.
am sure, my good farmer, you will se-
lect from your catalogue at least few choice
varieties of garden seeds, in the planting and
care of which you or your hired man will
need to spend but an odd hour now and
again, but whose product coming on to your
table in one form or another throughout all
the year, will add variety and relish to your
fare
Ladies who have ordered flower seeds and
grown flowers few years will need little as
sistance in making up this list where there
are so many desirable things to select from,
aud each highly extolled in the catalogue
The novice, however, finds elfsorely per-
picked in the laying out Of the sum Of money
to which she is limited. She makes out
list which amounts to many times this sum,
and goes over it again and again to leave out
what she can most willingly spare, One
will do well to let alone costly novelties,
whose beauty aud desirableness in the flower
garden is very seldom in proportion to their
price There are many cheap, weedy flowers,
also, which can afford but little satisfaction.
aud which, in view of the cultivation they
must receive, are dear at five cents a paper
Aud the cheaper mixed seeds which are the
refuse and gleanings, after the more select
seeds are put up, give but very indifferent
results generally. 1t is with that large class
of snowy flowers such as petunias, verbenaS
pinks, etc. each species of which has varied
widely, that the most effective and satisiacto.
ry display oap be made, Let me propose a
dollar order,
Aster, PeOny-aoweFed, mixed eolors, 10
CalliOpsis, mixed, 10