JULY, AUGUST, AND SEPTEMBER. 205 



of a freshly plucked flower. How quickly the famil- 

 iar strong scent carries us back in imagination to our 

 grandmothers' gardens ! The seed of the marigold 

 germinates in a remarkably short space of time. If 

 it is soaked awhile in veiy warm water, and then 

 planted an eighth of an inch deep in light soil, in 

 some position where it gets the full benefit of the 

 warm sunshine, the baby plant will push its way to 

 the air above in thirty-six hours ; ten weeks should 

 then elapse before the plant begins to bloom ; the few 

 flowers which may appear before this time are pre- 

 mature and poorly developed. Young plants forced 

 into early bloom by a beginning in the greenhouse 

 ultimately amount to little. 



The colors of the marigold are extraordinary : 

 golden yellow, orange-yellow, pure lemon-yellow, rus- 

 set-red edged with gold, and golden yellow spotted 

 with brownish-claret color — these are all rendered in 

 the purest tones on the gracefully curled rays. 



Zinnia. The garden zinnia has only one pal- 



Zin>iiaeie<jans. p^bje fault: it is Unmistakably stiff. 

 Yet, putting aside this little defect, we may certainly 

 consider it a gifted flower. It has an astonishing 

 range of color, which comprehends nearly the whole 

 scale — white, cream, buff, pale yellow, deep yellow, 

 lemon-yellow somewhat toned down, orange, light 

 orange, scarlet, crimson, magenta, the three pink 



