“But how can the work of the wind and the bees and the birds be improved on?  Just as the old gardener was doing it.  He had one pansy, oh such a large one, but not at all beautiful in colour.  He had another one, small but exquisite in colouring.  If he could but grow those two together, shake them up, say a magic word and get a pansy both beautiful and large!

“Rodney’s gardener used magic but not a magic wand.  He took a little knife called a scalpel.  He carefully took some pollen from the beautiful pansy and then rubbed it gently over the pistil of the big pansy.  The pollen was all ready to drop, and by this he knew it was ripe.

“Why did he place a bag over the pansy?  Well, simply because he didn’t wish that pansy interfered with.  Suppose the bag were not on; suppose after he had put the pollen on, the wind had blown other pollen to this same pistil?  Let us suppose that this other pollen came from a very inferior flower.  The experiment would have been spoiled.

“Any of you can try this plant improvement.  I see by Katharine’s eyes and Dee’s also that they are going to try it.  It is well if you have a pair of forceps.  Then you need not use your fingers against the plant at all.  Gently pull the pistil a bit forward, gently place the pollen on with the scalpel and you have performed the operation entirely with the proper instruments.

“The girls did some saving of fine specimens of flowers this fall, but the kind of work of which I have just told you means far more.  In the one case you choose from what you have; in the other case you make what you want.

“Good-by, again, until next Friday afternoon!”

V

INCREASING PLANTS

“This last garden season we have tried two methods of raising plants:  one was by seed; the other by slips or cuttings.  The girls will typify still another method with their bulbs.  This last method is by division.  A bulb as it stores up its nourishment after the blossoming time forms new little bulbs.  These may be separated from the parent tuber if large enough.  You all saw me dividing my peonies.  Those peonies doubtless were started years ago from one or two roots.  And now when I dug them up it looked as if I were laying in a stock of sweet potatoes so great was the increase.

“There are just three other methods of propagating or increasing plants.  These are layering, budding and grafting.

“Layering is done in several ways.  Suppose you have a gooseberry bush you wish to layer.  The time to do the work is after the flowering season is past.  Choose a branch which has not flowered.  Strip off the lower leaves.  Now where the old and new wood meet is the place for the cut.  Make a cut right into the stem which will be like a tongue.  Let this be about an inch long.  Hold this to the ground with the cut side down.  Bank soil over this.  At and under the tongue the new shoots will start, and the new gooseberry bush grow from this.  This new plant may be cut off from the parent.  If the twig will not stay bent down in this position, cut a forked piece of wood which shall act as a pin.  Do you picture this?  A branch bent so that not far from the parent plant it is buried under ground with the rest of the root protruding from the ground.