The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1899-09-13
FLOWER SEEDS.
How Amateur Florists May
Supply Their Own
Gardens.
NOW THE TINE FOR II
The Best Specimens Must Be
Taken or the Blossoms
Will Degenerate.
The Best Specimens Must Be

These are seed gathering times for the
thrifty housewife in the suburbs, says
the Newark sunday Call" She care
fully sorts the brown cups of the pinks
with their contents of little fiat, black
and brown seeds; the funny little bags
of the mignonette with its round, brown
and white grains of sand; the fine black
powder of the petunias and portulacas;
the fluffy winged seeds of the ~asters; the
big fiat disks of the ~hollyhock cheeses.
and the half dozen other varieties she
plans to grow next year. If she's a very
methodical person she keeps the different
coiors of each variety separate, and does
them all up in little homemade paper
bags. Each bag has the name OF the
flower, its color and various other partic-
ulars carefully inscribed. Next spring
many of these little packages will be ex-
changed Will neighbors for other varie-
ties, and those containing seeds OF par
to friends who have admired them in
their bloom, and perhaps have not hesi-
tated to ask for a few seeds There's q
sort of Freemasonry among amateur
florists which makes it quite proper TO
ask for cuttings OF. seeds.
The amateur gardener can not hope, Of
course, to be as successful in propagate
ing her lowers from year to year as the
professional. Her seeds are bound to run
outin time, and her glorious double white
asters will probably be ox-eyed daisies
in a few years unless she is more than
ordinary expert. The safest plan is to
reinforce the old stock with a new pack
age of seeds bought from the regular
scotsman every two or three years. Every
enthusiast likes to have one or two par
ticularly fine specimens. They offset the
more ordinary blossoms. With a little
care, however, the ordinarily thrifty anna
teur manages to keep herself supplied
from year to year. She is careful to
select only the finest blossoms in the
patch for seeds. A biz of string is loosely
tied about the stem, and serves as a
warning to the rest of the family that
this particular flower is not to be cut.
vigorously Topped off as soon as II opens,
and the plant is allowed to devote its
energy to forming seed.
Aside from its thrifty side and the pleas
ure Of giving to others not only the bios
SONS which have pleased us, but the
possibility of raising another crop OF beau
ty, there is a fascination in watching the
development of the seed itself and the odd
ways in which different plants equip their
children for the struggle for existence.
The wild flower seeds are even more in
teresting than those so carefully watched
in our gardens. No careful, long-con-
tinued human assistance has made them
helpless. They are quite capable OF dis
tributing next years crop for themselves.
One wonders sometimes II potatoes, for
instance. ever had a way OF distributing
themselves like the burdock or the dande-
tCt4F 4 1Fltc
ings in many ways. The more they're
helped the more help they. need.
We. Halter ourselves, aided by the poets
largely, that the flowers live to make US
a holiday from the sordid things OF every
day life. But they don't. Raising seed
is their object, and they have tricks clever
in distributing them. They utilize the
wind, the birds, sheep and dogs, and even
human beings, especially small boys. Il
need arises they will turn mimic ana
make their little lives a stage, with the
birds assigned to important parts in the
play. Nobody has yet been able to ex-
plain just why some of the flowers like
to play such curious jokes. Why should
the castor bean pretend 10 be a bug, 9r
the bisternia a hideous caterpillar, whlle
the scorplnous vermiculata convinces
any but the wisest observer that its seed
Is covered with a nasty half-coiled worm
thai one wouldn't touch at the end OF
ones longest halrpin.
A stroll along any of the roads out be-
yond Irvington or down along the road
to Elizabeth, or any other country road,
for that matter. will introduce the close
observer to a lot of more familiar but
| none the less curious and interesting
! Seeds The winged and hooked members
of the tribe furnish country children with
their most entertaining playthings. In
| return the children all unconsciously help
to scatter the seeds. Somebody has called
these ~sharp-hOoked seeds assisted immi-
| grants and like human immigrants they
very often go where they're not wanted
Take the burdocks, for instance Nobody
seems to want them except the japanese,
who really seem to know a good thlng al
ways when they see it. In Japan they awe
found out that the tubers of the ROADSIDE
burdock make a very p~alatable dish for
good look at a burdock. We say impatient
things when the seed cups lodge in our
| clothes. and hastily throw the prickers at
one side. But we rarely notice its grace
full shape or the extreme fine point to
| which the little hooks at the end of each
sheath blade, have been sharpened. me
children like them because the hooks
make it possible to construct all sorts of
| fanciful things by joining the burrs to-
| gether. One may make a whole set OF
dolls furniture out of burrs. Then a burr
| palace. A group of ingenious youngsters
once constructed a. regiment of soldiers
and a camp street lined with tents out OF
burrs. Many afternoons are spent beside
the burdock thicket along the roadside,
| and, of course, as each child goes home
she carries a few burrs- caught ~ her
clothes. These are disiodged and thrown
away. and Madam Burdock laughs in her
sleeve as she notes how those silly young
sters have carried her seeds far afield.
The dandelions, all the season round,
furnish entertainment for the country
child. When it's bright yellow any little
maid can tell whether you like butter or
not by holding ii under your chin. Later
on. when only 1.-THE dim ghosts of the
dandelion, as Lowell calls them, remain,
you can fell whether your mother wants
you or not by blowing three heads of the
I EilOStos II 1880
spongey button remains OF the ghost.
you'd better run home at once. but II
some Of the little umbrellas stick fast
then you may safely stay a few minutes
more. and the little fortune-teller has
helped notified dandelion to give a couple
Of hundred of her children a start far
away from home, where things are not SO
crowded.
The milkweeds too. are very interesting,
thousands of them perched closely to-
gether in their beautiful velvet pods until
some bright day in September when q
breeze is stirring, the pod cracks and
hundreds of silvery white fairies raise
their umbrellas and soar away toward the
sky There's a pretty superstition ABOUT
milkweeds. If a maid blow one Of the
downy winged seeds and wish very much
that it may carry a message to some one,
you may be sure that very soon there
after the downy messenger from the
fields win find its way up the city streets,
and perhaps soar in over the ledgers In
which a busy clerk is writing. And he,
prosaie mortal very likely. will Just brush
It off and never understand the message
at all. But milkweeds have more prosaio
uses this year than carrying sweethearts'
messages.
They are being gathered to stuff sofa
pillows. So are the cattails, which later IN
the fall will be dry and downy enough
to be carried by the vino to far-off fields.
Early iii the season the more ~observant
children have noticed the winged seeds
Of the naples which are scattered by the
gales. Their wings are thin, fiat gauze
attached to a little round hard seed
quite different from the feathery, UNI
| s1--5f. ttf<a rvf oe ~ Abr IN roda1ion a and tha