THE AMATEUR’S FLOWER GARDEN. 
171 
leaves, and the warmth and shade of the wood, that nature 
brings forth violets to perfume the breath of the spring. In 
preparing a soil for violets, use leaf-mould and very rotten 
hotbed manure freely. If the soil is strong, but unkind, dig 
in a great quantity of charrings from a smother. Having 
secured a proper soil, the next most important matter is to 
raise a stock of plants every year. The simplest mode of 
doing this is to take up a lot of old plants and tear them up 
in May and plant them in fresh soil. A far better way is, 
about the middle of April, to spread amongst the plants a 
mixture of leaf-mould and rotten manure, working it in by 
means of a broom or the hand, when the plants are quite dry. 
After this water the bed frequently with a waterpot fitted 
with a fine rose, to keep the surface-soil moist. In about 
twenty days there will be newly-rooted runners all over the 
bed holding to the tempting stuff with which the plants were 
top-dressed. How dig them all up, remove the strongest of the 
young newly-rooted runners, and plant them in a well-prepared 
bed, and throw all the rest away. Keep the plantation well 
watered during dry weather until the end of August, after 
which water need not be given. In due time you will 
have plenty of violets. If turf pits can be spared it is a good 
plan to plant in them a lot of the earliest and strongest 
runners, and then by putting on the lights as soon as the 
chilly nights of autumn return, the plants will bloom three 
months in advance of those in the open ground. There are 
many varieties of sweet violets in cultivation, and some of 
them are good, such as The Czar , and the Giant; but for out» 
door growth there is nothing to surpass the Russian , and for 
frame and greenhouse culture the Neapolitan. The so-called 
red violets are ill-looking, and scarcely sweet; the white- 
flowered are elegant and delightfully fragrant. 
The border violas are mostly American, and scentless. The 
best are : V. cornuta, pale blue; V. luiea , bright yellow; V. 
pahnata, purple ; V.pedata , dark blue ; V. tricolor, the common 
“ Heartsease,” for cultivation of which, see Pansy, page 78. 
Wallflower. —This is commonly classed with annuals, 
and, as such, is one of the most useful of our hardy plants. 
We place it here, because the real wallflower, Cheiranthus 
cheiri , and all its relatives, are true perennials, and may be 
grown from year to year, until they acquire the character of 
miniature trees, four or five feet (or more) in height. Though 
