102 FAMILIAR GARDEN FLOWERS. 



the products of human skill do not reveal. The florist's 

 double rose is a glorious thing, but the " canker of the 

 hedge " has charms that the exhibition roses give no hint 

 of ; indeed, when a " show-rose " shows an " eye " it is 

 condemned, and it is the eye or yellow centre of the 

 gauzy-textured " sweet wild-rose " that, as compared with 

 garden roses, gites it a peculiarly distinct and delightful 

 character. A rose with an eye is an awful thing, and a 

 pansy with rough petals and blotches put on the " wrong 

 way " is not less awful ; but, for all that, it is one of the 

 familiar flowers which the world will not willingly let die. 



Pansies may be described as hardy plants that will 

 grow anywhere and in any kind of soil. The humblest 

 cottager can grow pansies, and not a few cottagers are 

 pansy fanciers. Still, it cannot be said with any ap- 

 proach to truth that the pansy can be grown anywhere 

 under a great variety of conditions. As a matter of fact, 

 it is a somewhat fastidious flower, but as easy to manage 

 as any when the conditions are suitable. It requires a 

 deep moist sandy soil. In a dry starving land it will 

 scarcely live, but a real sandy loam suits it to a nicety. 

 It is comparatively useless as a town flower, and is 

 certainly one of the very worst of London flowers. 

 Country air it likes, but that is not all. In the east of 

 England it does not thrive as it does in the west, and in 

 the south it is quite poor as compared with its free growth 

 and exceeding beauty in the north. The reader possibly 

 perceives the secret of success in the cultivation of the 

 pansy. It likes pure air and humidity. 



Prom a horticultural journal we learn that the annual 

 rainfall in London averages twenty-four inches, in Bath 

 twenty-nine inches, in Ayr, which is near Paisley, forty- 



