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lished, pulled up the four or five superfluous plants 

 in each group leaving only the strongest to develop. 

 But now we have become such experts we plant them 

 singly with perfect success. 



One of the dearest things about the Shirleys is the 

 sweet surprises they bring, by conspiring with the 

 breezes which aeroplane them to all sorts of odd 

 places, transforming neglected corners into domains 

 of beauty. The owner of an old country garden near 

 by supplied us with a variety we have never 

 found duplicated in any of the packages purchased 

 — white, pink and red beauties wearing nine ruflBed 

 silk petticoats. The improved Shirleys are gener- 

 ally single or only slightly double. It is generally 

 conceded that the single form of any flower holds the 

 highest perfection of line, yet these old crinolined 

 Shirleys maintained their own, even when planted side 

 by side with the new poppies wearing the very latest 

 in plain gored skirts. 



It is odd that when rare and strangely beautiful 

 tints are produced in a member of a flower family, 

 the plant itself is often puny. One year we pos- 

 sessed a single Shirley poppy plant of tuberculous 

 appearance, which coughed up one blue blossom ; al- 

 though we sat up nights to save the seed, and appar- 



