"Why can't we save our own flower-seeds? Aren't the plants we grow just as healthy as those of the seedsmen we patronize year after year? Ought not the seed from them to be just as good as that we buy?"
Just as good, no doubt, in one sense, and not as good, in another. We grow our plants for their flowers. The seedsmen grow theirs for their seed, and in order to secure the very best article they give their plants care and culture that ours are not likely to get. Their methods are calculated to result in constant improvement. Ours tend in the other direction. The person who grows plants year after year from home-grown seed will almost invariably tell you that her plants "seem to be running out."
The remedy for this state of things is to get fresh seed, each year, from the men who understand how to grow it to perfection.
One ought always to keep his shrubs and choice plants labelled so that no mistake can be made as to variety. We may be on speaking terms with the whole Smith family, but we never feel really acquainted with them until we know which is John, or Susan, or William. It ought to be so in our friendship with our plants. Who that loves Roses would be content to speak of La France, and Madame Plantier, and Captain Christy simply as Roses? We must be on such intimate terms with them that each one has a personality of its own for us. Then we know them, and not till then.
The best label to make use of is a zinc one, because it is almost everlasting, while a wooden one is short lived, and whatever is written on it soon becomes indistinct.
In attaching any label to a plant, be careful not to twist the wire with which you attach it so tightly that it will cut into the branch. As the branch grows the wire will shut off the circulation of the plant's life-blood through that branch, and the result will be disastrous to that portion of the plant.