40 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



cultivation becomes an essential as well as a primary considera- 

 tion. Too frequently, however, are we as cultivators of these 

 plants prone to allow them to do what they will in the way of 

 flowering (and particularly is this so in the case of those plants 

 that naturally produce an abundance of flowers) without making 

 an effort to discover any special feature or worth that individual 

 kinds may perchance possess, and we are rather content to let 

 them in a very great measure have too much their own way. 

 This, however, is a mistake, and one we may with advantage 

 rectify, since it is only natural to assume of any plant that yields 

 an abundance of flowers with only ordinary care that its maxi- 

 mum may readily be forthcoming with a somewhat more liberal 

 treatment accorded it. Of very few plants indeed is this more 

 true than of Sunflowers, which in a large number of instances 

 produce their flowers in rich abundance and profusion during 

 the late summer and autumn months, when they constitute quite 

 a feature in our gardens. Many of the perennial kinds, and 

 notably the varieties of H. multiflorus, although very old inhabi- 

 tants of our gardens, can hardly be said to have attained to 

 anything like popularity till some dozen years or so ago, when 

 the so-called aesthetic taste for single flowers gave to these plants, 

 among many others, a sort of impetus as it were, that made 

 them popular with a large number. 



At that time the demand for plants was much in excess of 

 what it had been previously, and I well remember being driven 

 to extremes to propagate them in sufficient quantity ; but the 

 exigency of the case was met in a manner I shall presently refer 

 to in dealing with their propagation. 



Much of this popularity they still retain — that is if we may 

 judge by the hundreds of plants that are sold annually by the 

 leading cultivators of hardy plants ; and, coupling with this the 

 fact that Sunflowers are by no means delicately constituted, one 

 can only imagine, what I have reason to believe is the case, that 

 their cultivation is gradually extending to a large number of 

 amateurs and others who a few years ago barely knew of their 

 existence. But even if the taste for these flowers were on the 

 decline, the Conference of to-day, so admirably supported by the 

 grand collection of these plants which for some time past have 

 been flowering in the Society's gardens, would more than satisfy 

 all doubt as to their utility and general worth. Such a 



