54 PRACTICAL FLORICULTURE. 



Brooklyn, has there been anything done at all to compare 

 with that done in the far less imposing parks in the cities 

 already named. 



The designs on the preceding pages for massing in 

 colors, from the " Book of Plans," recently issued by Geo. 

 A. Solly & Son, of Springfield, Mass., will be found useful. 

 Of course, there is nothing arbitrary in the use of the 

 different plants here recommended to produce effects; that 

 is entirely a matter of taste and judgment in the oper- 

 ator. The distance apart in which plants should be set 

 for effect varies with the kind and size of the plants. 

 Coleus, Achyranthes, Geraniums and the other strong- 

 growing kinds should be set from ten to twelve inches 

 apart each way, while Lobelias, Echeverias, Alyssum, 

 Alternantheras, and all low-growing plants, should not 

 be set wider than five or six inches to produce the best 

 effects. 



CHAPTER IX. 

 SOILS FOR POTTING. 



I rarely pick up a work on floriculture but the matter 

 of soils is treated of in such a way as to be perfectly be- 

 wildering to amateurs, if not also to professional florists. 

 One authority gives a table of not less than nineteen sorts! 

 Whether these authorities practice as they preach is very 

 questionable ; some of them I know do not, but why they 

 should thus write and mystify those they attempt to 

 teach, can only be ascribed to a desire to impress their 

 readers with the profundity of their knowledge on such 

 subjects. Now, what is the effect of such instructions ? 

 Our amateur cultivators are disheartened, as such combi- 

 nations of soils are to them perfectly impracticable. The 



