178 
THE AMATEUR’S FLOWER GARDEN. 
to make a gay border or bed, any good garden soil will snit 
them, and they should stand six inches -apart. But if fine 
flowers are required they must be planted out on soil well dug 
and liberally manured, quite a foot apart each way, and when 
planted a thin coating or mulch of rotten manure should be 
spread over the ground amongst the plants. If well managed 
from the first, they will not need the support of stakes; but the 
cultivator must determine this point, and if it is needful to 
assist them with the support, they should be staked neatly 
some time before the flower-buds begin to swell. Having 
grown hundreds of thousands of all the sorts known, we have 
found it not only a saving of time but the better for the plants 
that they should not be staked at all; but if they are drawn 
in the early stages of growth, or are peculiarly exposed to 
strong winds, they must be assisted. In dry weather they 
should be well watered, and if flowers of high quality are 
desired, the flower-buds should be thinned to three or four 
to each plant as soon as they are visible. Slugs are great 
enemies of asters, and where these pests abound it is a good 
plan to plant lettuces in the beds at the same time as the 
asters, both to decoy the slugs from the asters and also enable 
the cultivator to crush the enemy; for they will congregate 
about the lettuces, and may thus be caught night and morning, 
and it will be well to hunt for them after dark by means of a 
lantern. Bed-spider and aphis are terrible destroyers of asters. 
To prevent their coming keep the plants growing freely, for it 
is the starving plant they search for and love ; the strong 
plant is not to their taste at all. Occasional dusting with dry 
powdered lime or sulphurized tobacco-dust will be found of 
great service when asters are assailed by any of these destroy¬ 
ers, but the golden rule from first to last is to insure a vigo¬ 
rous growth and a state of robust health, and then even the 
unfastidious slug will scarcely care to touch them, for he, like 
the rest of the marauders, has a special love for a soft sickly 
plant. A pleasing display of asters may be obtained by sow¬ 
ing the seed, on the spot where the plants are intended to 
flower, about the 10th of May, and thinning the plants to six 
inches apart. This simple system produces only late flowers of 
inferior quality. To insure fine asters the plants must be cul¬ 
tivated. 
The best varieties of asters are the Pwony flowered, Chry¬ 
santhemum, and Quilled ; of each of which there are several 
