250 WOOD AND GARDEN 



one that was formerly of indifferent quality ; but there 

 seems to me to be a kind of stupidity in inferring 

 from this that all annuals are the better for dwarfing. 

 I take it that the bedding system has had a good deal 

 to do with it. It no doubt enables ignorant gardeners 

 to use a larger variety of plants as senseless colour- 

 masses, but it is obvious that many, if not most, of 

 the plants are individually made much uglier by the 

 process. Take, for example, one of the dwarfest Agera- 

 tums : what a sUly little dumpy, formless, pincushion 

 of a thing it is ! And then the dwarfest of the China 

 Asters. Here is a plant (whose chief weakness already 

 lies in a certain over-stiffness) made stiffer and more 

 shapeless still by dwarfing and by cramming with too 

 many petals. The Comet Asters of later years are a 

 much-improved type of flowea*, with a looser shape and 

 a certain degree of approach to grace and beauty. 

 When this kind came out it was a noteworthy novelty, 

 not because it was a nOvelty, but because it was a 

 better and more beautiful thing. Also among the 

 same Asters the introduction of a better class of red 

 colouring, first of the blood-red and then of the so- 

 called scarlet shades, was a good variety, because it was 

 the distinct bettering of the colour of a popular race 

 of garden-flowers, whose red and pink colourings had 

 hitherto been of a bad and rank quality. 



It is quite true that here and there the dwarf 

 kind is a distinctly useful thing, as in the dwarf 

 Nasturtiums. In this grand plant one is glad to have 



