42 



liable to much damage from the wind, they should be 

 carefully tied to stakes as they grow. The seedling 

 plants thus treated will blow in July, and will con- 

 tinue in perfection till the autumn, but the first frost 

 injures their foliage and the beauty of the flowers, 

 which may, however, be preserved somewhat longer, 

 by moving the smaller plants with balls of earth into 

 large pots, and keeping them under cover in the green- 

 house or conservatory. 



Until a seedling plant shows it flowers, there are no 

 means of ascertaining its value ; the stems of those 

 which produce dark flowers are generally brown, or 

 a dark purple ; whilst the paler flowers grow on plants 

 with lighter stems, and the white flowering ones with 

 perfectly green stems ; but even these distinctions are 

 not constant. It is worthy of remark, that those 

 seedlings that take the lead and bloom first, seldom, 

 if ever, produce a flower worth preserving ; these are 

 from the finest seeds and thinnest blooms ; they vege- 

 tate first, and keep a-head all through the season, and 

 can easily be distinguished by their tall habit, without 

 side-branches ; whereas the late, small plants, that re- 

 quire nursing to make them bloom before the frost 

 arrives, generally produce the best flowers ; as it is 

 well known that very few of our best seedlings are 

 ever shown the first season of their blooming. These 

 are from the smallest seeds, and very double flowers. 

 The proper time to judge of the full merit of the 



