THE AUSTRALIAN GARDENER. 
mens the flower-spikes are thrown up to a 
height of 7 ft. or more. Perennial Star- 
worts or Michaelmas Daisies are indispen- 
sable plants, and the strongest of them 
will hold theix own well in the wild garden. 
The plants already mentioned do not form 
a tithe of the strong-growing subjects suit- 
able for use in the informal garden. At- 
tention may be drawn to Erysimum Peroff- 
skianum, an annual with brilliant orange 
flowers growing from I ft. to 18 in. in 
height, which will succeed on slopes of poor 
soil if a packet of seed is sown broadcast 
and the surface soil lightly raked over after 
the sowing is completed-——S. W. F- 
GARDENING IN THE CITY, 
We sowed seed this year of severay 
varieties of Carnations for cutting, such as 
the Marguerite, in pure white; and Van- 
guard Carnations, in a variety of tints. 
These plants come in so well in the autumn, 
when others are over, and a mass of them 
will make a grand show on our warm, 
raised border, where few flowers will 
flourish, as it is usually so dry. Carnations 
pack so well that they are amongst the best 
of flowers to send by post, and they do 
much better in town gardens than many 
other flowers. For buttonholes they are 
splendid, as they last so long without 
fading, and their dainty fragrance is always 
appreciated. Any young plant which fails 
to open its-buds before the frosts begin, we 
raise carefully from the ground and pot up, 
returning to its place in the: garden in the 
early spring without breaking the ball of 
soil. In this: way (with the help, too, of the 
splendid Malmaisone in spring) we are 
seldom without a few Carnations. Gladioli 
do well in warm, light soil, and give no 
trouble to raise them for the winter and re- 
plant, as is necessary in heavy clay. All 
we do to protect them is to make a little 
conical heap of ashes over their corms; this 
shunts off the rain as it falls, and also 
keeps out the frost. With the advent of 
warmer weather we take away these ashes 
and lay down a flat mulch of rich soil in its 
place, but we never trust anyone but our- 
selves to do this little bit of work, because 
gardeners are so fond of their spades, and 
generally slice off the ashes and the tops of 
the starting Gladioli at the same time, 
which is disastrous for the poor things. We 
take away the ashes with the hand, after 
_ loosening’ them with a small fork, if neces- 
sary. Kelway’s hybrid Gladioli aze extra. 
ordinarily fine, and in endless lovely shades 
of salmon, red, pink, and white. A few of 
the great spikes, cut, make an ideal bouquet 
for the hall or the fireplace, in a large vase, 
with plenty of wild Fern-fronds. They are 
most accommodating flowers, for they will 
open every blossom in a room, if cut as 
soon as the first are expanded, lasting 
lJonger in this way than in the heat of the 
sunshine. 
If you want to make your balcony very 
gay, you should order some Gladioli, and 
place oné corm in each 6-in. pot, with good, 
ight soil, without fresh manure. 
CULTIVATION OF ANNUALS. 
By Mr. A. McDonatp. _ 
Annuals are generally understood to be 
plants which grow up, flower, yield their 
seed, and perish. the same season in which 
they are sown. © The term annual, thoughi 
popular, is net by any means correct, as 
applied to plants. Applied to many 
things it is simple and clear, but when 
you apply it to plants you get out of a clear 
atmosphere into a thick fog. It 1s quite 
possible to get two or three crops of what /, 
are called annuals in one year, and on the 
other hand individuals of these same sorts 
of plants may live under slightly altered 
conditions any number of years. Plants 
are living things having no fixed period of 
life whatever only what the conditions 
bring about. What is an; annual in ane 
place is a perennial in another place, or 
even. in the same place under altered condi- 
tions. Take, for example, the well-known 
plant the Mignonette. In all the cata- 
logues—Colonial, English, French, and 
German—the plant is put down as a hardy 
annual. Now, you may get two or three 
crops of it jn one year; and on, the other 
hand English—and I should say Continen- 
tal gardeners as well—grow plants of it into 
nice bushes, and some of them live over 
several years by keeping them under arti- 
ficial conditions. In North Africa, where 
the plant is, I believe, native, it grows inte 
woody shrubs. The more you try to get 
a clear idea of what an annual plant really 
is the more foggy the whole thing becomes. 
It is the conditions which seem to deter- 
mine the issue, and no hard and fast: line 
can be drawn between annualg and peren- 
nials. f 
At a late meeting of this society a remark 
was made by a respected member to this 
effect “that there are some plants you can 
only grow as annuals,” and the wheat plant 
was mentioned: as a notable example. The 
wheat plant is an excellent example of a 
cultivated plant, and, I think, a very inte- 
resting one as well. Wheat grains have 
been found in the oldest Egyptian monu- 
ments—which the “wise men’ tell! us ave 
older than the creation of Adam—nearly 
as large as the grains of the present day. 
Now, it is assumed that a grassy plant like 
the wheat could only have developed heavy 
seeds Itke it has under cultivation and 
selection, as the heavy seeds entirely de- 
stroy its chance of maintaining itself in. 
the struggle for life, so that it could not de- 
velop them in a wild state. As the 
Egyptians and other ancient nations as- 
cribed its origin to the gods Isis, Ceres, &c., 
it is evidence, I think, that they had no 
true historical traditions of where it was 
first found and brought into cultivation, so 
that it seems to me that the plant must 
have been: in cultivation’ a very long time 
before the building of the oldest of the 
Egyptian monuments, and that altogether . 
wheat must have been cultivated ag an an- 
nual grain producing plant for many thou- 
sands of generations. And yet as far as I 
can see there is no hard law of necessity 
making it an annual, and that: it can be 
nothing else. It has always been culti- 
vated in the temperate regions of the globe 
where the changes from summer to winter, 
and vice versa, make it an annual, as these 
conditions make all vegetable growth in the 
temperate regions to a certain extent an- 
\ 
cultivated by p 
August 1, 1904 
nual. “You have only got to considex the 
conditions to be altered, when the plané 
would be altered too. For instance, if 
wheat is sown in the autwmn,.it springs 
and grows on through the winter, but :£ 
does not throw up its flower stems tA the - 
advancing heat of spring compels it. Dui- 
} ing the winter weather it stools out and 
forms a tuft, a grassy tuft. In a continous 
climate like our winter the plant would ferns 
a perennial grass, or placed under arti 
ficial treatment it might be made perenwiat. 
Of course, it would be a foolish thing te 
try to do anything of the kind, as the plant. 
is so very useful as it is; but it is not the 
utility, it is the possibility of conditdame 
altering the plant that I am discussing, ame 
2 very great deal could be said in suppext 
of the view I take, which is that if we cam- 
not grow some annuals into perennials it is 
because we are ignorant of the nature and 
wants of the plants, and not from anything 
inherent in the plants themselves. 
But if the term annual is not critically 
correct it is in general use, for want, B 
should say, of a better word. Bem- 
tham, the - celebrated English beta— 
nist, divides’ flowering plants inte 
“Monocarpie’ (or plants that enky 
flower once) and “Caulocarpie” (plants 
which flower more than once). These 
terms may be more strictly correct than the 
ordinary ones of annuals and perennials, 
but the words are not likely to become 
popular. They are too much of jawbreak— 
ers, have too many syllables, and until 
better words are invented we are justified im 
using the common terms. 
Mankind cultivates plants because they 
are useful to him, and in the front rank fer 
usefulness, far ahead of all the other eultr—- 
vated plants, stand the few annuals whick 
form the chief food of man; and, it is xe~ 
markable that out of the immense numhex 
of plants in the vegetable kingdom there 
should be so few found capable of taking: 
even a secondary place against the old ones 
handed down to us from remote times. Gm=- 
present high civilization, great in many 
things, perhaps, cannot heast of introduc 
ing into cultivation any good food plant 
like wheat or rice. It is highly probable, 
T think, that the first plants that ever were 
rimitive man were annuals, 
as their cultivation is of the easiest and 
simplest kind. To sow seed, and reap a crep, 
in a few months, does not require a very 
large amount of, intelligence, although it 
is evident it could only be done by man, 
there is no evidence that the apes do any— 
thing of the kind, asfarasI know. But tf 
our civilization has not introduced into cul 
tivation any good new food plant, it can— 
not be said that it has failed in introducing 
numbers cultivated for pleasure. In our 
times it has grown up to be almost a neces 
sity that people should have flowers in then 
gardens, and even in thei houses, and ta 
supply these wants there has been at least a 
good try; and m this line J don’t think 
that annuals take the pPace they do in the 
food-producing plants, what are called 
perennials seem to assert their claim to con— 
sideration. Although there have been a 
very great many introductions, there is not. 
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