It can be given twice a week, if the bulbs are in the open ground or in large boxes.

The Tigridia.

The Tiger-flower, or Tigridia, is a very showy Mexican bulb, growing about eighteen inches high; its flowers are four inches in diameter, and of most gorgeous coloring, and curious form. They require the same culture as the Gladiolus; will not live out of doors in cold latitudes. There are as yet but four or five varieties, which bloom from July to October.

T. pavonia, scarlet, spotted and tipped with yellow.

T. conchiflora, orange and yellow, with black spots.

T. conchiflora grandiflora, lemon-color, spotted with crimson.

T. speciosa, orange, with deep, maroon-colored spots.

Amaryllis formosissima.

The Jacobean Lily, or Amaryllis formosissima, is a dwarf-growing plant, and each bulb will usually produce two flowers of the richest crimson-violet hue, and of remarkably beautiful form; the flowers have six petals, three erect and reflexed, and three drooping, giving the flower a peculiarly graceful appearance. If planted early, in the house or hotbed, it will bloom in June or July. The bulbs must be preserved like those of the Tigridia.

Vallota Purpurea Superba.

This plant is of the easiest culture, and no summer flowering bulb surpasses it in richness of coloring. It is a native of the Cape of Good Hope; and its leaves do not die down after the flowering season, so it cannot be packed away like other bulbs, but must be kept at rest in the earth, in a dry state. The leaves are flat and of a rich green, and spread out like a fan. The flower stalk rises about a foot in height, and bears a cluster of from six to eight scarlet, lily-shaped flowers. The bulbs are increased by numerous offsets, which will bloom in three years, at the latest. Botanists class this flower with the genus Amaryllis, and it is called in some books Amaryllis speciosa; but it is more commonly known as Valotta purpurea, though there is no shade of purple about it, for the flowers are of the brightest scarlet, with bright yellow stamens and anthers. The bulbs can be planted out in the open border, and repotted when the frost comes. It is such a showy and elegant plant, that it should be cultivated by all who delight in Flowering Bulbs.

Tritoma Uvaria Grandiflora.

This is a splendid plant, with a magnificent spike of rich orange-red flowers; from its glowing color it has been called "Red Hot Poker.” It will bloom freely in any good garden soil, and is hardy in the latitude of New York city, but farther north, the roots require to be kept in sand during the winter. The flower-stem will often grow from four to five feet in height, and it produces a very fine effect. To bloom before the frost, they require to be started in March or April, and should not be planted out until there is settled warm weather.

The Summer Flowering Bulbs form a distinct class of flowers, and will, of themselves, make a gloriously gorgeous garden, requiring but little attention, as their bulbous roots do not usually demand the frequent waterings that annuals and bedding-out plants must have in this hot, dry climate. These bulbs, with the exception of the Lilies which head the chapter, must be housed in the winter, in cold climates; but our southern sisters can plant them out, and they will only ask to be removed to new quarters, as their offspring multiply and crowd them out.

The florists' catalogues offer them all at small cost, and it is impossible for those who have not feasted their eyes upon their glowing beauties, to even imagine their glories!

CHAPTER XVIL

OLD FASHIONED FLOWERS.

"O, Father, Lord!

The All-beneficent! I bless thy name,

That thou hast mantled the green earth with flowers,
Linking our hearts to nature! The old man's eye
Falls on the kindling blossoms, and his soul
Remembers youth and love, and hopefully

Turns unto Thee, who call'st earth's buried germs
From dust to splendor; as the mortal seed

Shall, at thy summons, from the grave spring up,
To put on glory, to be girt with power,

And fill'd with immortality."

"Common in old country gardens," is the term we often hear applied to flowers that are a little old-fashioned; yet to many hearts they are very dear. Not all the boasted glories of Verbenas, Coleus, Achyranthus, and all the newer kinds of bedding-out plants can wean us from the flowers our grandmothers loved to cherish. Their colors, markings and veinings may be far surpassed by the flowers of the present day, yet loved hands once tended them; bright eyes grew brighter at the sight of them; and they are associated with all that is holy, pure, and of good report. Who does not like to remember the days of childhood, when the gathering of old-fashioned flowers in grandmother's garden was one of the highest pleasures of life? Cowper says, that "it is a pity that a kitten should ever become a staid, old cat," and there certainly are individuals who are tempted to wish that they had ever continued to be children. Do you remember the delicious fragrance of the white Lilac bushes that grew beside the door step, at the old farm house, and the handsful of Lilies of the Valley, that you used to gather under the old

pear trees, beside the garden beds, where grew Sweet Rocket, Violets, Columbines, Spiderwort, Fleur de Luce, Daffodils, Sweet Williams, Gilliflowers, Larkspurs, Lychnis, and Nasturtiums, bright as butterflies? To be sure you do, and never will forget them while memory serves to furnish pictures for the mind's eye to view. Perhaps you gathered them to adorn a fair sister, when she gave her hand to the lover whom all considered tried and true; or, with fast dropping, blinding tears, they were plucked to wither in the chilling embrace of the reaper, Death, who had gathered the fairest flower of the hearthstone—the dearly loved baby-the youngest of the home circle! All these associations, and hundreds of others, are linked to the "old-fashioned flowers" of the past; so let us make room for them in the garden, and cherish them fondly for the sake of those who once loved them so well.

I have a great fondness for the older annuals and hardy perennials, which are now too often despised and neglected; many of them are certainly more beautiful than those which are so much praised.

A well-pruned "Snowball," in full bloom, is surely a thing of beauty! And I am certain that there are many discarded flowers which would amply repay cultivation.

The tendency of the age is to run after all that is rare and new, and to neglect that which every one possesses, forgetting the divine command to the chief of apostles, not to despise anything that God had made, nor to esteem it common. The first Dandelion possesses a great charm to me, is always gathered, and kept in water as long as a trace of its beauty remains. If it were a rare Japanese or Chinese novelty, how we should cherish it! but, no, it grows commonly by the road side, and in every pasture, so we pass it by.

There is no sweeter flower than the old, neglected Wall-flower, yet who cultivates it now? A recent writer says: "These old-fashioned flowers have a sweet fragrance which does not belong to modern favorites; and however much the last may delight us, they do not make us call to mind those delightful passages of our older poets that made our imaginations paint scenes of simple rural, floral beauty and loveliness that no artistic pencil can realize; but these 'old ladies' flowers,' or 'flowers of the poets,' often unveil to us some lovely picture or scene that long since, in our earlier readings, we had painted in the chambers of our heart, and from which memory, thus assisted, removes a pile of rubbish that had well nigh buried it in oblivion."

So we plead for the "flowers of the poets." They are all of easy cultivation, requiring little care, and blooming in endless profusion and beauty, and possessing a charm and loveliness fully equal to those which their modern sisters lay claim to.

To be sure the Tiger Lily, which was supposed to be the

"Emblem of human pride that fades away,

Of earthly joy that blooms but to decay,"

has been forced to feel the truth of the lines, and vacate its high estate for the more beauteous families imported from Japan; but the Hollyhock, of whom it was said,

"How high his haughty honor holds his head,"

has grown in elegance and gorgeousness of coloring, and has attained to the front rank among "florists' flowers." And the Aster and the Balsam have increased in beauty, and now take precedence of most other annuals; and the Gilliflower, like a real friend, attends us through all the vicissitudes and alterations of a century, even growing more beautiful. But the Marigold is almost superseded by its more brilliant sister, Tagetes signata pumila, which, in spite of its high-sounding name, is nothing but a single Marigold.

But if we read the seedsmen's catalogues attentively, we shall find the seeds of all of these "old-fashioned flowers" advertised, and can supply ourselves with a goodly show of them.