i4 FAMILIAR GARDEN FLOWERS. 
have the good fortune to begin early and be spared to 
labour late in developing the variability of this gay and 
useful plant. In its simple, and for present purposes we 
may say original state, as the common Indian pink, it is 
surely the cheapest and most beautiful of all our hardy 
annuals; but in its improved condition it ranks as a 
florist’s flower, and we name the finest examples and regard 
them as perennials because they are propagated from cut- 
tings. In the books the Indian pink is a biennial, being 
so classed because it is usually sown in summer to flower 
the next summer, and having flowered, dies. But it has 
been our rule to sow the seed early in a frame, and put 
the plants out in a bed of light rich soil in the month of 
May, and have them gloriously in flower from July to the 
end of the season: thus it becomes an annual. But it 
does not of necessity die after the first season’s flowering, 
for on a dry soil it will live many years, if the dead flowers 
are removed, so as to prevent the swelling of seed-pods: 
thus it becomes a perennial. A majority of so-called 
“Jyiennials” may be treated as annuals or perennials at the 
discretion of the cultivator. Of all the common plants, the 
life-term of which may be thus contracted or prolonged at 
pleasure, the most interesting, perhaps, is the mignonette. 
As usually treated it is an annual; but we have had 
immense mignonette trees that have lived fifteen years, 
and become quite woody and venerable, the one secret of 
keeping them so long being the systematic prevention of 
seeding. Allow them to swell a fair crop of seeds, and 
away they go. Do not allowa single seed-pod to swell, 
and in all probability a mignonette plant would live as 
long as its owner, and then become an “ heirloom,”’ or more 
likely a “ white elephant,” to another possessor. 
