130 
THE AMATEUR’S FLOWER GARDEN. 
cold water . We began this selection with the intention cf 
ignoring every troublesome and second-rate plant, and we 
break the rule here only because Gentiana verna is one of the 
loveliest plants in the world, and if it occasions a little trouble 
there will be found a few amongst our readers willing and 
glad to gratify its little whims and fancies. Any one with a 
soul big enough to poise on the point of a needle might feel 
a stirring of sentimentalism when beholding a great patch of 
the vernal gentian, quilted with flowers, in the month of April, 
and perhaps Campbell’s song might suit the vein :— 
cc I love you for lulling me "back into dreams 
Of tlie blue Highland mountains and echoing streams— 
And of birchin glades breathing their balm, 
While the deer was seen glancing in sunshine remote, 
And the deep mellow crush of the wood-pigeon’s note, 
Made music that sweetened the calm.” 
Cultivators of gentians may be thankful for a portrait of 
the tantalizing G. Fortunei, which, we are proud to say, was 
drawn from life. As we cannot keep the plant we cannot 
recommend it; but we shall hope for the day when the proper 
treatment of the plant shall be understood, when, no doubt, it 
will be found ready and willing to grow like a weed. 
Geranium (Crane’s-bill).—Very few of the hardy gera¬ 
niums are worth a place in the garden, and those few have 
but to be planted and left alone and they will spread rapidly 
and thrive without care. The simplest way to multiply them 
is by division of the roots. The best are G. jorcitense, a hand¬ 
some plant, with purplish-blue flowers; G . sanguineum , well 
known, tufted, dark green leaves, and bright rosy purple 
flowers; the variety G. s. Lctncastriensis is better than the 
species ; G. striatum is extremely pretty, the flowers delicately 
pencilled, the leaves bright light green. 
Gladiolus. —We must either say very much or very little 
under this head, and we elect to say the least possible. In 
warm, dry, sandy borders the finest kind of gladioli may be 
kept in the ground as hardy herbaceous plants ; but, generally 
speaking, they require to have special care in cultivation, and 
to be taken up in autumn and kept as dry bulbs through the 
winter. We have tried again and again to “acclimatize the 
Earned varieties of G . ramosus and G. gandavensis in other 
words, wc had left them out in the border, and have, except on a 
