V,..] 



LIST OF FLOWERS. 



267 



your number very easily. Do this with a sharp knife when you 

 take up your roots that are overblown, cutting them into as many 

 pieces as there are strong and plump buds, each of which will 

 blow strongly the next spring. The soil for the anemone is a 

 good, strong, rich garden mould, and the manure rotten cow or 

 horse dung ; but the former is mostly preferred, though neither 

 should be put too close to the routs of the plants, but should be 

 digged in at a foot or a foot and a half below the surface of the 

 ground. Avoid planting in a much exposed situation, for the high 

 winds knock the plants about, and severe frost will cause them 

 sometimes to blow less finely than they would do without such. 

 Raise the beds to about three or four inches above the walks, so 

 that rains may not lie upon them ; and plant about the latter end of 

 October, though, if your soil be very wet, it may be better to plant 

 later (the middle of February), as the plant has less time to 

 remain dormant and run the risk of rotting. Put in your roots at 

 five inches apart every way, making straight drills of about two 

 inches' depth for their reception, and taking care to place them in 

 these at even distances, a great deal of the beauty of these beds 

 depending upon regular order. And, when all tiie roots are placed 

 in the drills, cover them over up to the edge of the drills with fine 

 earth. The bud, I need hardly say, of the root, or tuber, should 

 be uppermost, and the roots, which will have the appearance of 

 brown coarse threads, down^^ards. The anemone, though a very 

 hardy thing, certainly blows the finer if not pinched during its 

 growth by frosts, and it is, therefore, the practice with all the 

 liorists to be prepared with a suitable covering of wheaten or barley 

 straw as the winter approaches, so that the first intimation of frost 

 is a warning to them to cover over their beds of these and other 

 similar roots. They are, however, careful not to endanger vege- 

 tation by keeping these coverings on unnecessarily, when they 

 would assuredly cause the roots to become mouldy and eventually 

 to rot ; but they watch for frosty nights, and keep olf the coverings 

 at all times excepting those. At the end of June, the plants begin 

 dying down, and that is the time for taking them up, separating 

 such as you mean to sepaiate, and putting all by for the next 

 autumn. There are many varieties of anemone obtained by sow- 

 ing the seed ; but the handsomest are the scarlet turhan and the 

 scarlet double. 



431. ARCHANGEL, balm-leaved.— h^t. Lamium orvcda. A 



