AUTUMX. 107 



bloomers, but as these last are jagged at the edges, I sus- 

 pect they are not true carnations. The common deep red 

 khid, though seldom deserving its name of clove, has more 

 perfume than those others, and when allowed to attain to 

 a good size in the borders, it thrives and flowers well with 

 very little attention. I am not competent to treat of car- 

 nations, or any other " florist's flowers," as to the real 

 culture ; but there are so many treatises on all these, that 

 no one can be at a loss, who really wishes to study the 

 .subject ; all I wish to do is, to rescue the carnation from 

 too rigid a seclusion, and persuade lovers of flowers to grow 

 it more freely. 



The greenhouse plants bedded out in early summer 

 should now be in full flower — scarlet geraniums, helio- 

 tropes, verbenas, and lobelias, while the spring - sown 

 annuals, especially China asters, French and African mari- 

 golds, and mignonette, will be making beds and borders 

 gay. The time of flowering of these, and of biennials, may 

 be prolonged by cutting off decayed flower-stems and seed- 

 pods ; this operation is also necessary on account of the 

 appearance of the plant, and should be carefully attended 

 to ; but we can actually get a double crop from some 

 flowers, the Canterbury bells, for instance, if the blossoms 

 are cut off when they fade. At the base of each flower- 

 stem there is a small green bud, which blooms after the 

 withered blossoms have been removed ; — the colours are 

 paler, but the plant may be thus kept in flower till Octo- 

 ber. This pruning, and training, and tying-up of flower- 

 stems is not our only autumn work ; for ere the damp, cold 



