THE POPPY. 155 



They prefer silica to chalk, and hence our red poppy often 

 betrays the poor gravel it is rioting- on ; and its love of a 

 dry foothold is proved by its happy state when located on 

 the topmost ridge of some old castle wall, where it seems 

 to outdo the snapdragon and the wallflower in its capability 

 of living on nothing. But note what a starved thing it 

 becomes when in this way beating the Frenchman's horse, 

 and learn therefrom the lesson that even a poppy requires a 

 certain amount of wholesome food. With this philosophical 

 observation we conclude the first part of the practical 

 essay. 



It is a characteristic of poppy plants to make tap-roots : 

 hence, in transplanting them, there is usually a season lost, 

 because the inevitable breaking of the tap-roots prevents 

 flowering the next season. But if the transplanting is 

 done with care during moist, cool weather, it will not be 

 attended with loss, because the plants have but to be left 

 alone and they will make new tap-roots to replace those 

 that have been broken by removal. When the plants are 

 raised from seed, only a few should be sown in a pot, and 

 of these the weakest should be removed as soon as possible. 

 By carefully planting out from pots so prepared, serious 

 injury to the tap-roots may be avoided ; and that part of 

 the business should be kept in view as of primary import- 

 ance in the cultivation of poppies. 



In the selection of garden poppies, the showy annual 

 kinds should, as remarked above, have special attention; 

 and the shortest way to deal with them is to sow them 

 where they are to stand, and thin them out in good time, 

 so that they do not crowd each other injuriously. The 

 most generally useful of the perennial poppies is the great 

 scarlet, or Siberian poppy (Palaver bracteatuni). This is 



