34 HARDY FLOWERS. 



naturally fine, light, and open, make it so by adding- plenty of sand 

 and leaf mould, and then surface the ground with a few inches of 

 fine soil from the compost-yard or potting-shed. The sifted refuse 

 of the potting-bench will do well. Then level the beds nicely for 

 the reception of the seed, and let them be each about four feet wide, 

 with a little footway or alley between them about fifteen inches 

 wide, and let them run from the back to the front of the border, not 

 along it. Make the little drills across the beds, and, instead of 

 making these drills with a hoe or anything of the kind, simply take 

 a rake handle, a measuring rod, or anything straight that happens 

 to be at hand, and, laying it across the little bed, press it gently 

 down till it leaves a smooth impression from a quarter of an inch to 

 one inch deep, according to the size of the seed to be sown. Do this 

 at intervals of about six inches, and then your little nursery bed is 

 ready for the seed. From these smooth and level drills the seed- 

 lings will spring up evenly and regularly. 



Before opening the seed packets, it is necessary to have a number 

 of wooden labels at hand on which to write the name of each 

 species, so that there may be no confusion when the plants come up. 

 These labels should be about eight or nine inches long, and an inch 

 wide, and the name should be written as near the upper end as 

 possible, so that it may not be soon obliterated by contact with the 

 moist earth. The labelling process is usually performed at the time 

 of sowing the seeds, but a very much speeouer and better way is to 

 lay out all the seeds on a table some wet day when out-of-door work 

 cannot be done, and there and then arrange them in the order of 

 sowing. Write a label for each kind, tie it to the packet of seeds 

 with a piece of matting, and then, when a fine day arrives for sowing 

 them, it can be done in a very short time. In sowing, put in at the 

 outer end of the first little drill the label of the kind to be sown 

 first, then sow the seed, inserting the label for the following kind at 

 the spot to which the seed of the first has reached, and so on. 

 Thus there can be no doubt as to the name of a species when the 

 same plan is pursued throughout. Near at hand, during the sowing, 

 should be placed a barrow of finely sifted earth ; with this the seeds 

 should be covered more or less heavily according to size, and then 

 well watered from a very fine rose. Minute seed like that of Cam- 

 panula will require but a mere dust of the sifted earth to cover it. 



Once sown, the rest may be left to nature, save and except the 

 keeping down of weeds ; the seeds of which abound in the earth in 



