THE GARDEN 41 



yellows, every shade and tint of the rainbow showing somewhere. The 

 grand range of colorings must be seen to be appreciated. A head of Sweet 

 William is a very gorgeous affair, indeed. The texture of the darker 

 petals is velvety, intensely striking, and wonderfully ringed, streaked or 

 blotched. As a general rule, each bunch of blossoms is homogeneous in its 

 color and markings, but occasionally one may come across a cyme made 

 up of florets, differently marked and colored. Double forms occur, but 

 this "doubling" does not improve the appearance of the flower head, a 

 blur of massed color being the result, not at all remarkable for any origin- 

 ality of form or coloring. 



The leaves are oblong, from an inch to five in length, from a frac- 

 tion of an inch to an inch in width. The leaves are not at all remarkable 

 for beauty, either of form or color, and the least lack of moisture will 

 cause a sickly yellowish tint to appear. 



Sweet William is a perennial, which means that seed must be sown 

 one year, the plants blossoming the following year. No matter how early in 

 the season the seeds may be planted the first season, no bloom will result 

 until the next year. Also, no matter how late in the esason the seeds may 

 be sown, the bloo mwill follow, just as surely the following year. If seeds 

 are sown early in the spring, the plants will have attained a size large 

 enough to divide and transplant before autumn. By constant dividing, the 

 flowers may be cultivated until immense heads are obtained. 



A fine plan to follow is to pull off all the small, secondary shoots 

 that come up from the main flower stem, and allow the one immense 

 head to come to perfection; that is, if one is striving for size alone. 

 Every one of the small shoots that can be removed from the main root 

 will grow into other plants, if they are placed in the earth and kept well 

 watered. In this way, one's stock may be constantly renewed, with almost 

 no trouble. 



When growing Sweet Williams, one cannot but be struck with the 

 exceeding fineness of the thread-like root. It is very important that this 

 root be well covered with earth. 



Cultivate your plants constantly, heeling the earth close up around 

 each plant. This not only conserves the moisture, but also gives the plant 

 a firmer hold in the ground. 



Protect well with a thick mulching of straw and manure, to save the 

 plants from the severity of the winter. One more word of advice — Divide 

 your roots frequently. 



SWEET SCABIOUS 



.... (Mourning Bride) . 



It is only when one attempts to describe a blossom that one realizes 

 how almost impossible a thing it is to do, and give a correct idea of the 

 true appearance of a flower. And this is a much more difficult thing to do 

 when the blossom happens to be quite unknown to the reader. All botan- 

 ists will know the difficulty. 



Now, here is a blossom utterly baffling a sensible description. Those 

 who know the "mourning bride" will have no difliculty in understanding 

 what is meant when we say that the flower is shaped somewhat like a bee- 

 hive or dome. But, think how many people may interpret this term, and 

 still have no true idea of the flower. 



Well, just imagine a dome-shaped green pin-cushion sort of thing, 

 stuck full of hundreds of tiny, cone-shaped, four-petaled florets, each one 

 full to the brim of richest honey. Think of each row of florets containing 

 a feast for the bees; each row being composed of florets smaller in 

 size than the row below, until, at the summit, the wee florets are un- 

 speakably tiny; the whole dome about two inches, more or less, in 



