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 God, 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 anticipation, when it is
impossible for me to be actually in it. My mind will be there in winter,
and I