74 FAMILIAR GARDEN FLOWERS. 



have the good fortune to begin early and be spared to 

 labour late in developing the variability of this gay and 

 useful plant. In its simple, and for present purposes we 

 may say original state, as the common Indian pink, it is 

 surely the cheapest and most beautiful of all our hardy 

 annuals ; but in its improved condition it ranks as a 

 florist's flower, and we name the finest examples and regard 

 them as perennials because they are propagated from cut- 

 tings. In the books the Indian pink is a biennial, being 

 so classed because it is usually sown in summer to flower 

 the next summer, and having flowered, dies. But it has 

 been our rule to sow the seed early in a frame, and put 

 the plants out in a bed of light rich soil in the month of 

 May, and have them gloriously in flower from July to the 

 end of the season : thus it becomes an annual. But it 

 does not of necessity die after the first season's flowering, 

 for on a dry soil it will live many years, if the dead flowers 

 are removed, so as to prevent the swelling of seed-pods : 

 thus it becomes a perennial. A majority of so-called 

 "biennials" may be treated as annuals or perennials at the 

 discretion of the cultivator. Of all the common plants, the 

 life-term of which may be thus contracted or prolonged at 

 pleasure, the most interesting, perhaps, is the mignonette. 

 As usually treated it is an annual ; but we have had 

 immense mignonette trees that have lived fifteen years, 

 and become quite woody and venerable, the one secret of 

 keeping them so long being the systematic prevention of 

 seeding. Allow them to swell a fair crop of seeds, and 

 away they go. Do not allow a single seed-pod to swell, 

 and in all probability a ' mignonette plant would live as 

 long as its owner, and then become an " heirloom/' or more 

 likely a " white elephant/' to another possessor. 



