48 



LADIES 5 flower gardener. 



laid upon a sieve to be sifted, when the flaps will alone remain 

 behind, or the earth may be deposited upon an open newspaper 

 or cloth, and well rubbed with the hand to feel for the minute 

 dark-colored flaps, which may easily escape observation. 



The beauty of this flower consists in its thickness and roundness, 

 especially when the great leaves are a little above the thickness 

 of the tuft. 



Choose your seed from the finest single anemone, with a broad, 

 round leaf. 



The remaining tuberous-rooted flowers are very hardy. 



BIENNIALS. 



Biennial flowers, as the name implies, are plants thafexist 

 only two years. They are propagated by seed, rising the first 

 year, and flowering the second. If they continue another year, 

 they are sickly and languid. The double biennials may be con- 

 tinued by cuttings and slips of the tops, as well as by layers and 

 pipings, though the parent flower dies — but they are not so fine. 

 A lady should have a space of ground allotted to biennial seed- 

 lings, so that a fresh succession of plants may be ready to supply 

 the place of those which die away. The seeds should be sown 

 every spring in light, well-dug earth ; the young plants should 

 be kept very clean, and some inches apart from each other ; and 

 they must be finally transplanted in autumn into the beds where 

 they are intended to remain. 



But there is a great uncertainty as to raising the double flowers ; 

 therefore it is better to make sure of those you approve by per- 

 petuating them as long as you can, by any root offsets they may 

 throw off, — by pipings, cuttings, or by layers, as before noticed. 

 I subjoin a list of the principal and useful biennials. 



