130 FAMILIAR GARDEN FLOWERS. 
and others that have been bred from in gardens, and 
so often crossed that it is in vain to look for distinct 
specific characters in the named varieties that now find 
favour. The seed-growers select certain showy types, 
taking care to insure plants of good habit, and they allow 
them to seed in a wild sort of way, the bees being free to 
cross them as they will, and the customers who buy and 
grow the seed being equally free to select from their seed- 
hng plants such as they consider worth a better fate than 
to be disposed of as annuals, which are here to-day and 
gone to-morrow. 
Garden petunias may be classed under three heads: 
unnamed seedlings of various colours, named single 
varieties, and named double varieties. The cheapest of 
all modes of obtaining a fine lot is to sow the seed thinly 
on a well-made sunny border about the middle of April. 
As soon as the plants are furnished with three or four 
leaves, those that are crowded should be drawn out and 
transplanted to a similarly favourable spot, but as many as 
possible should be allowed to remain to flower where sown. 
When they are in flower the best should be marked ; and if 
it 1s desired to perpetuate them, cuttings should be struck 
in August, five or six together in five-inch pots in sandy 
loam, and in these pots they should remain, having the 
shelter of a frame or greenhouse during the winter 
months. Thus you will have secured for flowering a 
second time, and indeed for as many years thereafter as 
may suit your pleasure or convenience, the best of the 
kinds that were in the first instance vroduced from pur- 
chased seed. 
Now, if you have in you the spirit of a florist you will 
regard this little lot of selected sorts as the traditional half- 
