110 SATURDAY IN MY GARDEN 



the initial vigour and vitality of seedlings. The resulting plan's 

 proved, in point of stamina, to be eminently satisfactory, though 

 in other respects, and especially in regard to their failure to come 

 true to the parent stock, they were disappointing. But as 

 scientific methods of seed-saving were introduced these difficulties 

 were overcome. It is now possible to obtain the seed of hollyhock, 

 verbena, and many other subjects which can be depended on not 

 only to come true to name, but to produce larger and more 

 perfect flowers than could be obtained under the old system of 

 propagation. 



Thus has been brought about a revolution in the economy and 

 complexion of the British flower-garden. Thanks to the efforts 

 of expert hybridisers, the number and beauty of innumerable 

 flowers have been augmented, the labour of the gardener has been 

 simplified and, owing to the resulting economy of time and money, 

 their cultivation has been brought within the means of hundreds 

 of thousands of amateur gardeners who would either have had 

 to forgo some of the choicest pleasures of gardening or, where 

 their purses allowed, must still have been compelled to depend 

 upon the skilled florist if it were desired to increase their stock 

 of plants. 



All this is now changed. Seed is so cheap and abundant that 

 for the expenditure of a trifling sum the amateur can stock a 

 well-sized garden with many of the most delightful flowers, and 

 secure a mass of bloom that will delight the eye of himself and his 

 neighbours during a large portion of the year. Indeed, the ease 

 with which the seed of the most common British garden flowers 

 can be secured leads to an amount of waste that, however profit- 

 able it may be to the seedsman, is positively appalling from the 

 economical gardener's point of view. This waste is due chiefly, 

 perhaps, to want of skill on the part of the inexperienced cultivator 

 who has not sufficiently studied the How, the When, and the 

 Where of seed-sowing ; but it is also due to the incurable practice 

 of buying more seed than can be usefully employed in a small 

 garden. The alternative is that of purchasing the seed of the 

 vast majority of common annuals and half-hardy annuals, as 



