117 



bear transplanting, but, as a general rule, it is best to 

 sow the seed where the flow^ers are to remain. When 

 seed is to be sown, the ground should be duly prepared 

 by forking, manuring, and adding any other soil or fer- 

 tilizer w^hich the nature of the ground, and of the plants 

 to be grown in it, may require. The spot to be sown 

 may then be made firm and flattened by pressing it with 

 the bottom of a flowerpot saucer, or other flat surface ; 

 then spread the seed, taking especial care that it shall 

 not be thick enough for the young plants to come up 

 crowded, cover it with fine mould, and put in a label. 

 All kinds of tallies and labels are sold and used, but 

 bits of lath, in six or nine-inch lengths, smoothed, 

 painted, and written on with a pencil, do very well. If 

 the seedlings come up too thickly they must be thinned 

 to such a distance apart as their size when grown up 

 w^ill require ; but as thinning, however carefully done, 

 can hardly fail to do mischief to the plants left, sowing 

 seeds thinly should be always attended to. To save the 

 seed from being eaten by birds, a garden pot may be 

 turned down over them until they are up. 



Half-hardy annuals are those which must be raised 

 indoors, or with the aid of heat, and protected from 

 frost, but which will do in the open air with us in 

 summer. Most of these are sown in a gentle hot-bed in 

 March, April, or earlier. When they have a few leaves 

 they are pricked out into pots or seedling pans, still 

 kept in the frame, in a greenhouse, or indoors, and 

 planted out w^hen all danger of frost is past. Many 

 flowers of this kind may be reared without difficulty 

 on the window^s or flower stands in a sitting-room or 

 other rooms in a dwelling-house, safe from cold, frost, 

 and too great change of temperature. In frost, if they 

 are grown on a window^ seat or window ledge, it is 

 sometimes necessary to remove them to the table in 

 the middle of the room when the fires are put out, 

 until they are lighted again. It is often a good plan to 

 sow the seed so thinly in pots that each pot may make a 

 clump for planting out. When the roots are so grown 

 as to make a good ball of the earth in the pot, it may 



