a4 THE FLORIST. 
tion of ordinary bedding plants. Nor should we omit to notice 
another reason bearing on our subject, which carries with 1t 
a strong motive for the increasing interest now felt for this 
class. Annuals, like other popular flowers, have been greatly 
improved by careful cultivation and judicious hybridising. 
The horticulturist soon perceives when a class of plants is 
susceptible of improvement through this agency, and advan- 
tage is quickly taken of the fact; to this result the many 
splendid varieties of Annuals which year by year are brought 
into notice are owing. Both in this country and on the Con- 
tinent great attention has of late years been paid to the object 
of obtaining improved varieties from seed, as may be seen by 
comparing the advance in Asters, Phloxes, Zinnias, Stocks, 
Tropeolums, Lobelias, and many other genera of Annuals; 
and looking at the magnificent Dianthus now figured, having 
been obtained by the efforts of Japanese gardeners, from the 
well-known Chinese Pink, we may refer our readers to both the 
plates of Annuals given in our present number, as conclusive 
evidence of the improvement which has taken place in the 
families they represent. 
But to grow annuals as they should be grown, and to develope 
their habit and beauty, the ground for them should be both 
deep and rich (as is necessary for all rapid growing plants), 
and the plants should be treated as individuals requiring 
generous treatment. We remember the time when a ring 
formed with the finger round a 82-sized flower pot in the loose 
soil of the border, was the common way of committing the 
seed of Annuals to the ground. Here they remained to grow, 
and after an ineffectual struggle for more room, spindled 
upwards into bloom, when the first fortnight’s dry weather 
closed their career. What figure, let us ask, would Mons. 
Truffaut’s grand Asters cut with such treatment as this? Or 
what the splendid Zinnias, Tropeolums, and Larkspurs which 
form such striking objects when grown singly in good. soil, 
if they had been left to starve, at the rate of fifty plants per 
square foot of ground? No; Annuals, to do justice to them, 
must be treated individually as we treat a specimen plant, and 
then you get a freedom of growth combined with a profusion 
of bloom; and what is more, the deeper and richer the soil, 
the longer they will continue in perfection. 
ee 
For the introduction of the superb varieties of Dianthus which 
form our 160th plate, English nurseries are indebted to M. Heddewig, 
of St. Petersburg, who obtained them from Japan direct, and subse- 
quently sent seeds to a few of the principal seedsmen in London, where 
