246 AMERICAN GARDENER. 



389. TULIP. Beds of Tulips vie with those 

 of Carnations and Auriculas. They are made 

 shows of in England, and a single roots is some- 

 times sold for two or three hundred guineas. 

 And, why not ; as well as make shows of fiic 

 tures, and sell them for large sums ? There is 

 an endless variety in the colours of the tulip. 

 Th.i bulbs, to have, the flowers fine, must be 

 treated like those of the Hyacinth. The tulip 

 may r je raised from seed ; but it is, as in the case 

 of the Hyacinth, a thousand to one against get- 

 ting from seed a flower like that of the mother- 

 plant. 



390. VIOLET. This is one of the four fa- 

 vourites of the Spring in England. It is a little 

 creeping plant, that comes on banks under the 

 shelter of warm hedges. The flower is so well 

 known to excel! in sweetness, that, " as sweet as 

 a violet" is a phrase as common as any in the 

 English language. There is a fiurfile and a 

 white. Abundance of seed is borne annually by 

 both ; and the plant is perennial. If you propa- 



ji gate from seed, the flower does not come till the 

 second year ; but, one plant, taken from an old 

 root, will fill a rod of ground in a few years. 

 There is a little plant in these woods in Long 

 Island, with a flower precisely like that of the 

 purple violet ; but, the leaf is a narrow oblong, 

 instead of being as the English is, in the shape 

 of a heart ; the plant does not creep ; and the 

 flower has no smelt. 



391. WALL-FLOWER. It is so called, be- 

 cause it will grow, sow itself, and furnish bloom 

 in this way, by a succession of plants, for ever 

 upon old walls, where it makes a beautiful show. 



