EVERY WOMAN HER OWN FLOWER GARDENER. 21 



to grow and bloom. So, it is as well to transplant them from boxes, or 

 hotbeds, early in the summer, when all fear of frost is past, as to do it 

 later from the garden beds. 



Seeds of various sizes require different depths of covering. The 

 smaller the seed, the less the soil it needs to plant it, and the finer the 

 soil should be. 



Portulaccas, Petunias, and all tiny seeds, should be mixed with sand, 

 and sprinkled or sifted on to the earth prepared for them, and then 

 gently pressed down with the flat of the trowel or the hoe. The general 

 rule for planting has been to the depth of three times the diameter of 

 the seed. 



Too deep planting is a fruitful source of the usual loss of seeds, so 

 much complained of by amateur gardeners. 



The several essentials to successful germination of seeds of all kinds 

 are suitable soil, suitable moisture and warmth ; if these are in excess, 

 or not sufficient, some, if not all, of the seeds will fail. 



In planting seeds in the open border, the soil must be thoroughly 

 pulverized, no little lumps left in it to destroy plant life. 



Eake in the seeds, scattering them thinly around; or, a better way is 

 to tie a string to two small sticks ; plant one of them firmly in the earth, 

 and with the other draw a circle of the dimensions you may desire ; 

 wind up the string until you have it of the right length, then plant the 

 seeds in the circle, and label them. Don't trust to your memory for the 

 names, and then say " this pink flower, that red one, and the other blue 

 or yellow one," but learn their names, and call them by them. 



One often rebels at the many-syllabled word that is applied to a tiny 

 mite of a flower ; yet, that same Latin word tells to every botanist its 

 class and order, while the common, familiar, local name is recognized 

 only by one language. 



Miss Mitford says: "One is never thoroughly sociable with ,flowers 

 until they are naturalized, as it were, christened, provided with decent, 

 homely, well-wearing English names." 



The practice of giving Latin names to flowers and plants has been 

 styled pedantic. It is not so ; for it conveys an idea of the flower to every 

 student of Botany and Gardening in every nation. 



Leigh Hunt thus writes upon the names of flowers : 



" Pink is not by itself a pretty name, but we have associated it since 

 our first dawnings of infancy, with the sweetness of the flower, so now 



