ly decay in contact with the soil.

* * * * *

Sometimes we get very amusing letters from parties "in search of
information." Not long ago a woman sent me a leaf from her Boston Fern,
calling my attention to the "bugs" on the lower side of it, and asking
how she could get rid of them. How did I suppose they contrived to
arrange themselves with such regularity? A little careful investigation
would have shown her that the rows of "bugs" were seed-spores. If
anything about your plants puzzles you, use your eyes and your
intelligence, and endeavor to find out the "whys and wherefores" for
yourself. You will enjoy doing this when you once get into the habit of
it. Information that comes to us through our own efforts is always
appreciated much more than that which comes to us second-hand. Make a
practice of personal investigation in order to get at a solution of the
problems that will constantly confront you in gardening operations.

* * * * *

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