One has to "pay with one's person" for most of one's pleasures, if one is delicate; but it is possible to do a great deal of equinoctial grubbing with safety and even benefit, if one is very warmly protected, especially about the feet and legs.

These details are very tedious for young people, but not so tedious as being kept indoors by a cold.
And not only must delicate gardeners be cosseted with little advantages at these uncertain seasons, the less robust of the flowers gain equally by timely care.

Jack Frost comes and goes, and leaves many plants (especially those planted the previous autumn) half jumped out of the ground.

Look out for this, and tread them firmly in again.
A shovel-full of cinder-siftings is a most timely attention round the young shoots of such as are poking up their noses a little too early, and seem likely to get them frost-bitten.

Most alpines and low-growing stuff will bear light rolling after the frost has unsettled them.