anger in such cases is that of
freezing on the ride with the rural carrier, and this can be guarded
against in a great measure by using plenty of paper in wrapping, and
buckwheat hulls for filling. It is better to pay postage on a little
extra weight than to risk injury to the valuable goods enclosed.

[Illustration: HALLEY]

[Illustration: CRACKER JACK]

[Illustration: GRETCHEN ZANG]

CHAPTER IX.

Growing from Seed.

There is great satisfaction in growing the finest gladioli that have
ever been produced in all the world. The consciousness that one has the
best obtainable gives pleasure, but raising seedlings of one's own,
knowing that they are different from any others, that no two are exactly
alike, and that among them may be one or more of the very finest, and
ultimately finding this possibility realized, is one of the greatest
delights in horticulture. One ounce of good seed will produce about
three thousand bulbs, and among them will be found a large number of
fine varieties. If the seed is from choice stock, with no common
varieties near, most of the seedlings will be worth saving. So I advise
every grower to raise seedlings. They will yield both pleasure and
profit. Some years ago I bought all the seed that was offered by the
pound in America and Europe, about thirty pounds, and no one but myself
ever knew the satisfaction that came from that investment. At another
time I was growing a bed of seedlings and the grasshoppers cut them off
at the ground early in the summer. I supposed that they were ruined and
went to plant something else on the bed a week or two later, when, to my
surprise, I found small bulbs, about the size of apple seeds. I saved
them with great care, sixteen thousand in number, and planted them the
next spring. They made a fine growth and nearly all bloomed the year
following. The pleasure they gave, not only to myself, but to my
friends, paid many fold for the time spent on them, and more than made
up for the disappointment I had felt when I thought the grasshoppers had
destroyed them.

The gladiolus opens its first flower in the morning, and the work of
going over a bed containing hundreds that have just bloomed for the
first time, and marking the finest with tags upon which are inscribed a
few characters that mean much to the owner, and almost nothing to anyone
else, will give one an undercurrent of joy for the rest of the day.
Another special pleasure that comes to the growe