THE FLOEAL WORLD AND aARDEN GUIDE. 101 



very deep, and liberally manured, within a few days after reading 

 this, and at the end of the month plant it with roots of Ganna lim- 

 hata, six inches deep and two feet apart. AVhen the planting is 

 finished, sow all over the bed mignonette, or balsams, or any good 

 annual. The first season the cannas will make a free growth, and 

 fiower well, and the annuals will fill in and enricli the bed. You are 

 not to take up the cannas in autumn, but let them remain in the 

 ground, laying on tlie bed in November a foot depth of long stable 

 manure, or if the position will not allow of anything so unsightly, 

 cover it with a foot depth of cocoa-nut fibre. At the end of April 

 the next season, draw this off, and soon after the cannas will begin 

 to push through. Annuals are not to be sown after the first season, 

 as the cannas will choke them. Every year these cannas w^ill become 

 stronger, the winters wdll not harm them ; the bed will be one of 

 the grandest and cheapest ever planted. We believe that all kinds 

 of cannas might be treated in the same way ; but vje know, by five 

 years' observation of a bed so treated, that Umhata may be con- 

 sidered a hardy plant. 



Selianthus argophyllus may be sown any time in xlpril where it 

 is to remain. It forms a freely-branching plant, with silvery leaves 

 and smallish yellow flowers of the sunflower type, averaging five 

 feet high. K. macropliyllus giganteus is the largest and tallest sun- 

 flower known, and suitable only for the shrubbery, or for the 

 neighbourhood of half-wild water scenes. 



Heradeum rjiganteiim and H. eminens are magnificent plants for 

 just the same purposes as the gigantic sunflower, and both like a wet 

 soil. Sow the seed early in April in pots, and place the pots in a 

 frame. Plant out when large enough. 



Magijdaris tomentosa, a grand plant for the same purposes as the 

 two subjects last named. 



JSficotiana macrojylujUa, JV. purpurea, H. glaitca, and JV. virginiana, 

 are four of the finest of tobaccos for ornamental purposes, but a 

 packet of mixed seed will give greater variety. It is not generally 

 known that the tobacco may be grown as a liardy annual, but such 

 is the fact ; and we have but to sow the seed on ground that has 

 been well dug and manured, and made rather fine, and in due time 

 the pUnts will appear and grow freely. Several of the species of 

 Nicotiana have in our garden become weeds, appearing annually 

 from self-sown seeds. 



Bicinus communis. — Very few practical gardeners are aware of 

 the fact that the seeds of castor oil plants sown in the open ground 

 at the end of April make plants which very nearly equal, as the 

 summer advances, those that were raised in heat, and treated with 

 the greatest care. It almost always happens, that after being 

 planted out, these plants are subjected to a trying check, by reason 

 of cold weather ; now those sown in the open ground do not suffer a 

 check, for they are scarcely above ground until the summer is fairly 

 set in ; and they sometimes overtake in their rapid growth those that 

 have had two or three months' start of them, but have suffered 

 through being too soon exposed to the weather. If a little trouble 

 is not objected to, the growth may be hastened by sowing the seeds 



