EVERT WOMAN HER OWN FLOWER GARDENER. 39 



skill and patience were rewarded by the production of still more beauti- 

 ful varieties. Other nurserymen followed his example, and in a few 

 years the unpretending Heart's-ease took its place as a florist's flower of 

 no small pretensions. The French name Pensees was the origin of the 

 English word Pansy. 



Milton alludes to it as the "pansy freak'd with jet" amongst those 

 " vernal flowers," whose " quaint enamel'd eyes a sad embroidery wear." 

 Another writer says : 



"Are not Pansies emblems meet for thought ? 

 The pure, the chequered gay aud deep by turns ; 

 A line for every mood the bright things wear, 

 In their soft, velvety coats." 



One must not suppose that rich soil or careful culture have wrought 

 such wonderful changes in the Pansey. This is only the first step in 

 the march of improvement. 



The seeds of the finest flowers were carefully preserved, and the finest 

 of the young seedlings were selected for seed. Hybrids were also ob- 

 tained by fertilizing the stigma of one rarely colored flower, with the 

 pollen of another of a larger variety. These hybrids generally possess 

 in a great degree the peculiar qualities of each parent, and retain their 

 peculiar markings. 



Innumerable are the varieties now cultivated ; there are upwards of a 

 thousand named kinds catalogued by the English nurserymen. 



Mrs. London says in her book upon " Floriculture," that " the varieties 

 of forms and colors which appear in the plants raised from seed are so 

 great that few floricultural pursuits can be more interesting than to sow 

 a bed of Pansies, and watch when they flower for the varieties most 

 desirable to perpetuate." 



By judicious management, a successive bloom can be retained for 

 eight months in the year, and even a slight attention to their needs is 

 rewarded by a profusion of beautiful flowers. There is no bedding-out 

 plant which gives a more liberal supply of flowers from the earliest 

 spring to the latest autumn. 



Plants from seed blossom finely the first year, and give much larger 

 flowers when the plant is small, for as it increases in size, the blooms 

 though abundant are smaller and inferior in coloring. 



A constant succession of flowering plants should be brought forward 

 during the spring and summer months, and the plants kept young and 



