VII. LIST OF FLOWERS. 



perennial, which it is not in our gardens, unless thus 

 carefully managed. The stalks rise (with good digging 

 and good manuring) to near four feet high, becoming a 

 very branching and large plant. The colours are, red, 

 yellow and white, with mixtures, red and yellow, red and 

 white, yellow and white j and there are some purple 

 sorts. The pie-balled sorts are most esteemed, and, 

 therefore, the gardeners are careful to save seed from 

 none but such plants as have yielded mixed flowers. This 

 is taste, however, and as long as tastes differ it is proper 

 to have all the sorts that can be procured. The yellow 

 makes the greatest show. The flower is borne at the 

 end of every shoot j and the blowing begins in the first 

 week in July, and continues until the frosts set in. The only 

 reason for the most fastidious to quarrel with this plant, 

 is, that it blows but little in the heat of the sun, reserv- 

 ing all its beauties for those who rise early enough to see 

 it at from five to seven o'clock in the morning. It is 

 properly a hardy annual, though, as said above, may be 

 rendered perennial, and may be sown in the open air as 

 soon as all chance of injury to the young plants by frost 

 is over. April is the best time for sowing. One plant is 

 enough in a spot, and that not near to any minor plant or 

 shrub, as it effectually sucks all moisture from it, and by 

 its spreading branches, overlays it. The seed is a black 

 fleshy substance coming in a little cup that the flower 

 falls out of when overblown. In pots it makes a pretty 

 show, but it requires so much more sustenance than is to 

 be contained in a small vessel of this kind, that, even in 

 the largest, it will not blow such large flowers as the 

 plants in the open air j and unless the flower be a very 

 large one, that is, about the size of a half crown, it is a 



