and of Rural Improvement generally, during 1839. 723 



violet, the heartsease, the wallcress, &c. Thus a flower-garden 

 may be covered with flowers from March to November, by the 

 use of annuals alone, at an expense for seeds of only a few 

 shillings. Lists of annuals proper for this purpose will be 

 found in Vol. XIII. p. 498., and in Vol. XIV. p. 407. ; 

 and it may be useful to add, that the following kinds stood 

 through the winter of 1838-9, in the Lewisham Nursery, and 

 flowered last spring from February to June, ripening seed so 

 early that a second crop flowered and ripened seed, from which 

 plants raised are at this moment, Nov. 21., in full bloom. The 

 kinds alluded to are : Nemophila insignis, CollinszVz bicolor, 

 Schizanthus pinnatus, Lasthenia glabrata, Clafk/tf pulchella, 

 Leptosiphon densiflorum, Gilza tricolor, G. capitata, Phacelia 

 tanacetifolia, and several sorts of Oenothera and of Coreopsis. 

 By having the beds of a flower-garden small (and we prefer 

 small circles of different sizes, arranged in groups, so as to form 

 regular or irregular figures, according to the situation), and 

 sowing only one kind of flower in a bed, a splendid display of 

 flowers may be produced and maintained through the floral months 

 at very little expense. We wish much that the provincial hor- 

 ticultural societies would offer premiums for the greatest num- 

 ber of new annuals cultivated by cottagers ; and also for the 

 greatest number of flowers in blossom in a cottager's garden, at 

 one time, in each of the floral months. This would lead to a 

 cheap and easy means of giving a splendour to the cottager's 

 front garden which it has never yet had, even highly enriched 

 as it now is, compared with what it was twenty years ago. As 

 the Californian annuals ripen their seeds so freely and abun- 

 dantly, were the}' generally cultivated by cottagers, many of the 

 kinds would soon become naturalised in our woods, hedges, and 

 road-sides, so as perhaps ultimately to be ranked by the authors 

 of British floras as indigenous plants. The taste for annuals, 

 among the cultivators of flower-gardens generally, has been not 

 a little increased during the past year, by the publication of 

 The Ladies' Flower-Garden of Ornamental Annuals, a work of 

 extraordinary merit and proportionate success, of which we 

 have already spoken (p. 88.), and shall recur to again in the 

 course of the present article. 



Horticulture. — So few new fruits or culinary vegetables have 

 been introduced in the course of the year, that Mr. Thompson 

 has not thought it necessary to furnish us with a Report, which, 

 our readers are aware, the council of the Horticultural Society 

 kindly permits him to do ; extending the same permission also 

 to Mr. Gordon, with reference to hardy trees and shrubs. The 

 most interesting horticultural subject which has come under 

 our observation in the course of the year is, the mode of treat- 

 ing fruit trees by Mr. Barron, at Elvaston Castle, and more 



