April

April 18th.--I have been so busy ever since Irais and Minora left
that I can hardly believe the spring is here, and the garden hurrying
on its green and flowered petticoat--only its petticoat as yet,
for though the underwood is a fairyland of tender little leaves,
the trees above are still quite bare.

February was gone before I well knew that it had come,
so deeply was I engaged in making hot-beds, and having
them sown with petunias, verbenas, and nicotina affinis;
while no less than thirty are dedicated solely to vegetables,
it having been borne in upon me lately that vegetables
must be interesting things to grow, besides possessing
solid virtues not given to flowers, and that I might as
well take the orchard and kitchen garden under my wing.
So I have rushed in with all the zeal of utter inexperience,
and my February evenings were spent poring over gardening books,
and my days in applying the freshly absorbed wisdom.
Who says that February is a dull, sad, slow month in the country?
It was of the cheerfullest, swiftest description here,
and its mild days enabled me to get on beautifully with
the digging and manuring, and filled my rooms with snowdrops.
The longer I live the greater is my respect and affection
for manure in all its forms, and already, though the year
is so young, a considerable portion of its pin-money has been
spent on artificial manure. The Man of Wrath says
he never met a young woman who spent her money that way before;
I remarked that it must be nice to have an original wife;
and he retorted that the word original hardly described me,
and that the word eccentric was the one required. Very well,
I suppose I am eccentric, since even my husband says so;
but if my eccentricities are of such a practical nature
as to result later in the biggest cauliflowers and tenderest
lettuce in Prussia, why then he ought to be the first to rise
up and call me blessed.

I sent to England for vegetable-marrow seeds, as they
are not grown here, and people try and make boiled cucumbers
take their place; but boiled cucumbers are nasty things,
and I don't see why marrows should not do here perfectly well.
These, and primrose-roots, are the English contributions to my garden.
I brought over the roots in a tin box last time I came from England,
and am anxious to see whether they will consent to live here.
Certain it is that they don't exist in the Fatherland, so I can
only conclude the winter kills them, for surely, if such lovely
things would grow, they never would have been overlooked.
Irais is deeply interested in the experiment; she reads so many
English books, and has heard so much about primroses, and they have
got so mixed up in her mind with leagues, and dames, and