“I may have one dollar to spend.  I have decided to buy three shrubs.  I shall plant one by itself; the two others together in a clump.  I wanted forsythia, but I have finally decided on Japan snowball and Van Houtte’s spirea.”

“Why?” asked Albert.

“You see the forsythia shows up best against a dark background because of the bright yellow flowers.  I have no good setting for such a shrub.  Then, too, it blossoms so very early in the spring, in April you know, that it seemed to me, since I must plant this spring, I’d disturb less a later flowering shrub.  I chose the Japan snowball because it’s less liable to have lice than some others and because it looks well all by itself on the lawn.  That spirea is a specially good variety of spirea because it does well almost anywhere, and also it is very showy and the foliage is handsome all summer long.  Some shrubs look scrubby after awhile.”

“Where did you get all this knowledge, Philip?” asked Albert, half enviously.

“I made it my business to know.  I hunted up shrubs in a catalogue, then I called on a florist, and we had a shrub talk together.”

“Now, I call that getting down to real work,” Jay remarked.  Philip looked happy and Peter nearly tilted his chair over in his pleasure for he evidently felt the city was making good.

“Now, Jack, bring on the coldframe.”

“I have my drawing right here,” began Jack, spreading it out on the table while the boys crowded about.  “You look at the drawing as I explain.  Myron and Jay have promised to help me make it.  It will be a coldframe this year; next fall I shall change it into a hotbed.”

“How?” broke in Albert.

“I shall dig out the soil from the coldframe.  Then I shall put in two feet of manure and cover it with four inches of soil.  This spring about all I can do is to mix into the soil some well-rotted manure.  I guess I shall put in about three inches in all.  I guess I can explain,” continued Jack, delighted at this opportunity to air his newly acquired knowledge.  “The Chief has talked this over with me.  It all depends upon what you wish to use the frame for.  I want to use mine to get an early start this spring, so I make the bed rich and depend on the sun’s rays mostly for heat.  This, then, is a coldframe.  The sloping glass frame helps you see.  But next winter I hope to really get results out of this frame, so I have to supply extra heat.  The layer of manure underneath gives this.  I then have a hotbed.  If I just wish to keep plants along, ready to force next spring, then the sun’s rays would be enough for that work without the layer of heat.”

“I see, thank you, and why do you say layer of heat?  I should call it a layer of manure.”

“Because it is heat, isn’t it?  And anyway real gardeners call it that.  We may as well use the right names; don’t you think so, Chief?”

“Surely, Jack.  It’s our business to know right terms.  Each line of work has its own language.  Jack has done a good piece of work so far.  We shall have most of our next meeting in the workshop.  Jack, Myron and Jay are going to work on this frame.  You other fellows will be able to make stakes and dibbers enough for the crowd.”