EARLY BLOOMING PLANTS FOR FLOWER-BEDS. 
183 
strength for the flower-garden. The beds intended to be occupied by them, are 
prepared as early in autumn as circumstances will permit, with a good manuring 
of cow-dung, and, if necessary, a little fresh loam is added ; for, by continually 
producing two crops every season, it would otherwise soon be exhausted. The 
1 earlier the roots can be put in, the earlier and stronger they will flower. 
When it is time to plant out the Verbenas, or scarlet Pelargoniums, &c., the 
Anemones and Ranunculuses are carefully taken, with as much earth about them 
as will adhere, and laid in the earth in a vacant part of the kitchen-garden, where 
I they can be shaded for a fortnight or three weeks (if the weather prove dry and 
sunny) to mature their tubers. As soon as the stems are withered, the roots are 
taken up, dried, and put carefully by in paper bags, in the usual way. 
In taking them up Mr. E. finds it most important to preserve the leaves 
entire ; for if they are carelessly bruised or broken off, the roots, instead of 
ripening, speedily begin to shrivel ; and if they should happen to grow another 
year, the production of flowers would be scanty and diminutive. We examined 
two or three bags of tubers treated in this way, and they appear as plump and 
well-matured as any that have been allowed to remain undisturbed. 
The Verbenas and Pelargoniums, &c., intended to fill the beds in summer, 
should have larger pots and be kept growing, exposing them gradually to the air ; 
and as the season advances, merely protecting with a mat or canvass during the 
night. The Anemones and Ranunculuses need not be removed till the last of the 
Pansies are cleared away ; consequently the Verbenas and Pelargoniums will have 
made good plants, and soon fill the beds and flower. 
It is advisable that a little foresight should be exercised, so that those beds 
which are soonest cleared in the autumn may be planted with the Anemones and 
Ranunculuses without interfering with other arrangements, or bringing too many 
beds of one colour together. Those plants which will be wanted for the green- 
house in winter, or to be taken up in autumn and preserved in frames, should if 
possible be in those beds suitable for planting with Anemones and Ranunculuses. 
A few beds of these plants would be instrumental in relieving the monotony of 
Pansies ; and whilst they contribute to enliven the spring garden, would not 
interfere with its autumnal appearance. 
There is one circumstance relative to flower-garden plants in general, which we 
may take this opportunity of strongly insisting upon ; and this is the necessity, as 
already suggested, of freely manuring or altogether renewing the soil in the beds 
about every other season, or even every winter. The frequent changing of crops 
on the same earth must inevitably rob it of a considerable portion of its nutritive 
properties. And such abstraction is increased by the spreading luxuriance which 
many of the varieties attain. 
The old notion that manure is unfavourable to the development of flowers has 
been before combated by us. It is one of those dogmas which modern practice 
has completely annihilated. At least it is now clear that a moderate manuring is 
