AND FLOWER-GARDENS. 



seeds in very shallow drills four inches apart, covering 

 the seed in the slightest possible manner. I should, per- 

 haps, have first said, that the seed should be saved from 

 a semi-double plant the stem of which is strong and 

 high, the flowers large, thick and round, and of brilliant 

 colour j and also that it should be gathered in a dry time, 

 scraped off from the stalk by patiently using your finger- 

 nails for the work, and kept in a dry, though airy, place 

 till the time for sowing. Let your seed-bed be in an 

 eastern aspect, the one best suited to the ranunculus 

 whether a seedling or a flowering plant j water with a 

 fine-rosed watering-pot, so as to keep up a continual 

 moisture, and, when the plants are up, give plenty of 

 air j remove the light from the frame, and cover over 

 with hurdles or a thick covering of netting. Do not 

 move these young plants till their leaves are perfectly 

 dead, and then do as with young anemones. By offsets. 

 The time of planting out your old root is precisely that 

 directed as the proper time for planting out the anemone j 

 and, it is at the time of planting that you part the offsets 

 from the mother-roots. They are easily discerned, each 

 complete root having a bud enveloped, as it were, in a 

 greyish down , the under part being composed of several 

 dark brown claws, for the most part tending inwards at 

 their points. These look as if perfectly dead, but, a few 

 days under ground plumps them up to a considerable 

 size j and it is even, with some, the practice to put the 

 roots into a basin of water a few hours previous to 

 planting them, a practice of very doubtful utility. The 

 offsets that you take off are just as fit for blowers as the 

 mother-roots j they do not, like the hyacinth and tulip, 

 require nursery beds to bring them into flowering in a 



