130 FAMILIAR GARDEN FLOWERS. 



and others that have been bred from in gardens, and 

 so often crossed that it is in vain to look for distinct 

 specific characters in the named varieties that now find 

 favour. The seed-growers select certain showy types, 

 taking care to insure plants of good habit, and they allow 

 them to seed in a wild sort of way, the bees being free to 

 cross them as they will, and the customers who buy and 

 grow the seed being equally free to select from their seed- 

 ling plants such as they consider worth a better fate than 

 to be disposed of as annuals, which are here to-day and 

 gone to-morrow. 



Garden petunias may be classed under three heads : 

 unnamed seedlings of various colours, named single 

 varieties, and named double varieties. The cheapest of 

 all modes of obtaining a tine lot is to sow the seed thinly 

 on a well-made sunny border about the middle of April. 

 As soon as the plants are furnished with three or four 

 leaves, those that are crowded should be drawn out and 

 transplanted to a similarly favourable spot, but as many as 

 possible should be allowed to remain to flower where sown. 

 When they are in flower the best should be marked ; and if 

 it is desired to perpetuate them, cuttings should be struck 

 in August, five or six together in. five-inch pots in sandy 

 loam, and in these pots they should remain, having the 

 shelter of a frame or greenhouse during the winter 

 months. Thus you will have secured for flowering a 

 second time, and indeed for as many years thereafter as 

 may suit your pleasure or convenience, the best of the 

 kinds that were in the first instance produced from pur- 

 chased seed. 



Npw, if you have in you the spirit of a florist you will 

 regard this little lot of selected sorts as the traditional half- 



