60 



THE FLOWEK GARDEN. 



they may be planted out at once in their permanent 

 sites ; if not, in pots filled with good mould, which must 

 be kept on a hotbed under glass, admitting plenty of air, 

 till the first week in June. The first blooms are mostly 

 imperfect ; and Dahlias are scarcely in their full beauty 

 till the great heats and droughts of summer are over ; 

 that is, at the end of August and in September. It is 

 as well to cut off all imperfect and faded blooms, that the 

 sap may be directed to the buds that are successively 

 coming forward. There is no need, here, to do more 

 than allude to the grafting of choice Dahlia-shoots on 

 the tubers of inferior varieties. 



The Dahlia derives its principal value from its filling 

 the void left by the disappearance of summer flowers, as 

 well as from displaying its finest blooms at the season 

 when our aristocracy return from town to their country 

 seats. It is a gaudy, flaunting, showy plant, which has 

 the great merit of usefulness in its way ; but it is far 

 from possessing all that can be wished for in a flower, 

 and no doubt many of its early worshippers will now 

 confess that they prostrated themselves too blindly before 

 their idol. But every one has, and ought to have, his 

 taste. ¥e have no right to blame, though we may not 

 sympathize with, the amateur who prefers a Dahlia to a 

 Bose. 



A smaller species, D. cosmceflora, which has not yet 

 started off into varieties, is of dwarfer habit, and pro- 

 duces flowers with a purple disk and lilac rays. 



Hemerocallis flava. — Day Lily ; a plant with yellow 

 or tawny flowers, which was not mentioned at the same 

 time with the other Lilies, simply because its root is not 

 bulbous. It is a coarse plant, quite hardy, fitter for the 

 shrubbery than the choice parterre, producing a tuft of 

 long narrow leaves, and easily propagated by root-division. 

 This Day Lily produces a fair succession of ephemeral 

 flowers. Other Day Lilies have been made into a sepa- 

 rate genus, FunJcia, more remarkable perhaps for their 

 leaves than their flowers. JF. subcordata has heart-shape- 

 leaves, of a bright green, with longitudinal folds or plaits, 



