APRIL 55 



true pleasure of a garden." The qualities to look for 

 in the bed of seedlings are not the narrowing ones of 

 proportion of eye to tube, of exact circle in the cir- 

 cumference of the individual pip, and so on, but to 

 notice whether the plant has a handsome look and 

 stands up well, and is a delightful and beautiful thing 

 as a whole. 



Tulips are the great garden flowers in the last week 

 of April and earliest days of May. In this plant also 

 the rule of the show-table is no sure guide to garden 

 value ; for the show Tulip, beautiful though it is, is of 

 one class alone — namely, the best of the " broken " 

 varieties of the self-coloured seedlings called "breeders." 

 These seedlings, after some years of cultivation, change 

 or "break" into a variation in which the original col- 

 ouring is only retained in certain flames or feathers of 

 colour, on a ground of either white or yellow. If the 

 flames in each petal are symmetrical and well arranged, 

 according to the rules laid down by the florist, it is a 

 good flower ; it receives a name, and commands a cer- 

 tain price. If, on the other hand, the markings are 

 irregular, however beautiful the colouring, the flower is 

 comparatively worthless, and is " thrown into mixture." 

 The kinds that are the grandest in gardens are ignored 

 by the florist. One of the best for graceful and dehcate 

 beauty is Tulipa retrqflexa, of a soft lemon-yellow colour, 

 and twisted and curled petals; then Silver Crown, a 

 white flower with a delicate picotee-like thread of 

 scarlet along the edge of the sharply pointed and 



