THE AMATEljSfe’S FLOWER GARDEN. 
187 
pleted give the bed a good soaking with weak liquid manure, 
then carefully touch it over with a small hoe or rake to make 
a neat finish, and the routine of your cultivation is completed. 
You may now send out cards of invitation to friends, for you 
will have a bed of stocks that will be worthy of admiration, 
and far too good for your own enjoyment solely. 
Stocks may be sown in September and wintered in frames 
for an early bloom. They may be sown again in heat in January 
or February, but by no other course of cultivation than we 
have here described, is it possible to obtain them in perfection. 
The best sorts are Ten Weeks for summer display; Interne - 
diate for autumn. The German Dwarf Bouquet and German 
Large-flowered Pyramidal are useful. A few good sorts are to 
be preferred to anything like a collection; indeed, collections 
are only adapted for experimental gardens, the directors of 
which expect always to bestow their time on many things of 
quite secondary value. 
Zinnia. — The habit and requirements of this plant so 
closely correspond with those of the aster, that they may be 
grown side by side from first to last, and there will be no 
shadow of difference in their behaviour. The double Zinnias 
are magnificent when well grown, but the single varieties can¬ 
not be dispensed with. A set of beds on an open sunny lawn 
devoted severally to asters, balsams, stocks, and zinnias, or 
one great bed containing a mixture of them, would afford the 
frequenters of the garden a rare and delightful entertainment, 
for few people grow these charming flowers, owing to the pre¬ 
valence of a false faith in geraniums and verbenas as the only 
plants that can be persuaded to flower out-of-doors in any 
garden in Great Britain. 
