CHAP. VIII.l 
ANNUALS. 
259 
tion in flower, they may, by proper manage¬ 
ment, be contrived to produce a brilliant 
effect during the whole summer. For this 
purpose a well-trodden path, or a piece of 
very hard ground, should be covered about 
an inch thick with very light rich soil; and 
the seeds of any of the Californian annuals 
should be sown in it. These will stand the 
winter, and in February or March, when the 
flower-beds have been dug over, and made 
quite smooth, the annuals should be taken 
up with the spade in patches and laid on 
the bed ; the spaces between the patches 
being filled up with soil, and the whole 
made quite firm and compact, by beating 
\ 
each patch down with the back of the spade. 
As soon as the patches have been removed, 
fresh earth should be spread on the hard 
ground, and fresh seeds sown in it, the 
plants springing from which will be ready to 
transfer to the beds as soon as the first series 
have done flowering; and in this way a suc¬ 
cession of flowers may be kept up nearly all 
the year, observing to dig over the bed in 
the flower-garden to which the flowers are 
to be transplanted, and to rake it smooth 
s 2 
