138 GARDENS PAST AND PRESENT 



Certainly one surprise of modern gardening is 

 the speed with which plants can be brought to the 

 flowering stage. It used to be a long business, for 

 instance, to work up a stock of bedding verbenas ; 

 and the continual process of propagating cuttings 

 in strong heat ended at length in disaster, for 

 this fine garden plant was in danger of being exter- 

 minated by exhaustion. M. M. Vilmorin, of Paris, 

 and others took them in hand before it was too 

 late, and now a sturdy race has been evolved of 

 better habit than of old, and all we now have 

 to do is to make sure of getting the finest of seed 

 to obtain, under ordinarily good cultivation, the 

 finest of plants. The same may be said of carna- 

 tions. The Italian firm who first introduced Mar- 

 guerite carnations laid all gardeners under great 

 obligations. Now we have still stronger and better 

 races which will flower in six months from the 

 date of sowing, and are as fine in form and colour 

 as many of the named varieties of former years. 

 These and other plants, like pentstemons and the 

 Japanese chrysanthemums beforementioned, not 

 being solely of annual duration, we can either 

 keep any exceptionally good sort, or increase it 

 by cuttings; but it is a great boon, by giving 

 them the treatment of annuals, to be able to enjoy 

 them in the garden of a year. Yet it would be a 

 pity if the perennial quality, by reason of too much 

 insistence, were gradually to be eliminated a con- 

 tingency not altogether unprecedented in the his- 

 tory of evolution. The precocious abundance of 

 flower naturally tends to diminish robustness of 

 constitution ; and it is not absolutely certain that 



