rs or ten cents. If it is
of wood, give it a coat of some neutral-colored paint before you fill
it.

SPRING WORK IN THE GARDEN

Not much actual work can be done in the garden, at the north, before the
middle of April. But a good deal can be done toward getting ready for
active work as soon as conditions become favorable.

Right here let me say that it is a most excellent plan to do all that
can be done to advantage as early in the season as possible, for the
reason that when the weather becomes warm, work will come with a rush,
and in the hurry of it quite likely some of it will be slighted. Always
aim to keep ahead of your work.

I believe, as I have several times said, in planning things. Your garden
may be small--so small that you do not think it worth while to give much
consideration to it in the way of making plans for it--but it will pay
you to think over the arrangement of it in advance. "Making garden"
doesn't consist simply in spading up a bed, and putting seed into the
ground. Thought should be given to the location and arrangement of each
kind of flower you make use of. The haphazard location of any plant is
likely to do it injustice, and the whole garden suffers in consequence.

Make a mental picture of your garden as you would like to have it, and
then take an inventory of the material you have to work with, and see
how near you can come to the garden you have in mind. Try to find the
proper place for every flower. Study up on habit, and color, and season
of bloom, and you will not be likely to get things into the wrong place
as you will be almost sure to do if you do not give considerable thought
to this matter. There should be orderliness and system in the garden as
well as in the house, and this can only come by knowing your plants, and
so locating them that each one of them will have the opportunity of
making the most of itself.

Beds can be spaded as soon as the frost is out of the ground, as advised
in the chapter on The Garden of Annuals, but, as was said in that
chapter, it is not advisable to do more with them at that time. If the
ground is worked over when wet, the only result is that you get a good
many small clods to take the place of large ones. Nothing is gained by
being in a hurry with this part of the work. Pulverization of the soil
can only be accomplished successfully after it has parted with the
excessive moisture consequent on melting snows and spring rains.
Therefore let