142 
CONTEMPORARY WRITINGS. 
Of course, when this highly-finished character 
is given to walks and edgings, they must not 
be neglected or spoiled afterwards by inatten- 
tion : both the gravel and the edges of the 
turf must be kept even, or it will be of no use to 
make them so. The gravel must be frequently 
rolled when moistened by a shower ; and if 
carefully and lightly swept, and not wantonly 
torn up, there will be little trouble in keeping 
that as it should be. The turf must be very 
evenly mown, and mown close down too ; and 
the edge must be cut quite straight and even 
by the shears every time the grass is mown, 
and the oftener this is done the better the 
effect, and the lighter the labour. — M. 
Blights (so called) are of various descrip- 
tions, but that which is most fatal is the wind. 
Drying winds completely deprive, by rapid eva- 
poration, all the tender leaves and flowers of 
their juices faster than they can be supplied. 
This is the great evil from which plants in ge- 
neral suffer. Even in a frost, the portions exposed 
to a drying east wind are blighted ; even the 
most hardy plants suffer. The common Laurel, 
the Rhododendron, and Aucuba japonica, will 
show by the brown edges of their young leaves 
how mischievous is a dry easterly wind. It 
is affirmed by some experienced men, that if it 
were possible, in these cases, to supply mois- 
ture externally by syringing, the consequences 
of drying winds might be averted. But a 
thousand minor things reveal to us the blight- 
ing effects of too rapid an evaporation. Cut- 
tings in the open ground, exposed to the winds, 
flag directly ; cover them close with a glass, 
and they will not flag at all. Nosegays under 
a glass, in a dish of water, will last a long 
while in a room, whereas without covering 
they are soon dead ;' drying winds are, there- 
fore, often as fatal to beauty, if not to life, as 
a frost. 
Marking op the Pansy. — Few people, 
when they obtain a showy Pansy, pay suffi- 
cient attention to a very important point which 
is absolutely necessary to a good flower— 
the eye being entirely surrounded by the yel- 
low or white ; for if the rays or streaks break 
through to the border colour it is a decided 
fault — a fault scarcely to be overlooked. On 
this account small centres are rarely good, 
not because the proportions of colour are ob- 
jectionable, but because in nineteen of every 
twenty cases the rays of the eye reach the 
border. In an Auricula, the divisions are all 
circles, and proportions can be laid down very 
accurately, so that any material deviation is a 
fault in itself ; but the Pansy, though it should 
be circular outside, has nothing else circular 
about it. The flower must be uniform ; that 
is, the two upper petals should be alike. The 
two side petals should be alike, and the bottom 
one may be any thing, so that the inside of it, 
or the centre colour, must be the same shade 
as the inside or centre colour of the side 
petals. But it is much better that the Pansy 
should have a large centre than a small one; and 
as great changes can be made by the diver- 
sity of colour, or the disposition of it, in 
three distinct kinds of petals, it would have 
been unwise to have confined any of the pro- 
perties so as to preclude a single variety that 
was in itself rich and beautiful. But there is 
a sound reason for insisting that the white or 
yellow shall be distinct and unbroken where it 
meets the border colour; and it is necessary 
to give this explanation to those who feel 
somewhat annoyed when a showy flower is 
condemned without their knowing, or even 
thinking, of the very important defect which 
condemns it. The Pansy consists of three very 
distinct classes of flowers, independent of co- 
lours : selfs, which are white, yellow, straw co- 
lour, or the various blues, browns, and pur- 
ples ; bordered flowers, which have white or 
yellow round the petals, and colour at the edges; 
and those flowers which have self-coloured top 
petals, and the three under ones bordered. 
These are very distinct, but selfs ought to 
have but one colour outside the yellow tube 
or centre, and those which are cloudy are 
comparatively worthless. Many of the selfs, 
and especially dark ones, have a lighter shade 
round the centre; some have a bluish cast, and 
some cloudy ; but all these are great faults, 
and when they are shown against others free 
from it, they must fail in the hands of good 
judges. We have been requested to state our 
opinion as to the comparative merit of flowers 
not circular; and we at once say, that one which 
is wider from side to side than from top to 
bottom is the better of two faulty ones; in other 
words, breadth is far better than length. We 
hope we have been explicit, though, perhaps, 
a little prolix. 
The Properties of Flowers. — These 
have unquestionably been settled in a manner 
not likely to be altered, but the figures by no 
means answer the perfection laid down in the 
letter-press. So far as this goes, then, we 
have to hope for improvement. It is not the 
author's, but it is the artist's fault; and nothing 
is more difficult than to get an artist to keep 
his own taste in subjection : we like the pic- 
turesque in landscape, but in giving a diagram 
for a model of perfection, the artist's horror of 
stiffness induces him to fly off from plain 
circles and flats. They might, however, con- 
trive this, by placing the stiff model in any 
position which would exhibit the proper shape 
and no other : — but no, he must have some of 
the petals curled or twisted in, hanging down, 
or turning over, to show his power of fore- 
shortening his task in grouping. Even those 
who read the properties of flowers, as published 
