beds in a reserve part of the garden, and transplanted later to the borders where they are to flower. Sometimes they are put out at once into their permanent situation. This is partly a question of habit and partly of room. When a plant is not going to flower till next year, you would rather keep it out of your show border this year, so if you have a nursery border you let it grow up there. If it is going to flower in a few weeks, you may as well give it a good place at once and leave it alone. Then, again, some things are the better for the check of transplantation, while others recover with difficulty or not at all. In gardening it is easier to make general rules for the gardener than for his plants. He must be as wise as a good doctor, and find out what treatment different plants require, what food, what surgery or medicine, and what stimulants; and he must even learn, just as a doctor must, to apply his general knowledge to his special case. For instance, the very Geranium that he has taken into his greenhouse every winter in Yorkshire may be planted against the south wall of his house if he lives in Cornwall, and trusted in a few years’ time to reach the roof, and give him flowers for his Christmas dinner-table. All that he knows about gardening must be influenced, and sometimes considerably altered, by his own local conditions of soil, aspect, and climate. You must remember this when you buy your seeds in the spring and your bulbs in the autumn, and choose those that do well in your neighbourhood. You should always observe what plants other people near you are growing in their gardens, and what conditions they give them. In that way you can learn a great deal about the management of your own.

Sweet-Peas.

‘Here are sweet-peas on tiptoe for a flight,
With wings of gentle flush o’er delicate white,
And taper fingers catching at all things,
To bind them all about with tiny rings.’

We like to remind you of these charming lines by Keats, because then you will always think of them when you look at your own Sweet-peas on a summer day. But our business is to tell you how to grow them, so that they are ready for the poet when he comes by, and we do not begin with a summer day, but with one at the end of winter, when the seed lists come and set you thinking of spring. Sweet-peas have become such a popular flower of late years that we have heard people talk of the ‘Sweet-pea world,’ by which we suppose they meant the growers who cultivate the many new varieties and the rare shades. When you are grown up you will have to decide for yourself whether you belong to any of these ‘worlds’ in the florist’s sense of the word. We have never had the least desire to grow a black Tulip or a blue Rose, but there is no doubt that when ‘fanciers’ take up a flower they improve it for a time. If you gave up gardening for ten or twelve years, and then began again, you would find that there were new varieties of some of your old favourites, and that the sorts you used to grow were not admired now. The most popular and well-known flowers all have such a history. Your grandmother would remember when every Dahlia in the garden was as stiff as the modern little Pom-poms, but much bigger. Then, about twenty-five years ago, the single Dahlias ousted the stiff ones, and now we all grow Cactus Dahlias, with long pointed, twisted petals. So with Sweet-peas. Fifty years ago no one wanted anything but a mixed clump, some of which would be mauve or purple, some marbled, and some pink. Now it is usual to grow each colour by itself, and every year we seem to get better colours and bigger flowers. The fanciers of the ‘Sweet-pea world’ have taken Sweet-peas in hand, and by careful cultivation and selection have given us many new and beautiful varieties. At first novelties are dear, because the stock of seed is small, but for a few pence you can have a hedge that would have rejoiced Keats; and if you are a wise child, you will certainly grow those that have become plentiful. We will give you the names of some varieties that we like best, but you will easily understand from the little we have told you that some years hence our list will probably look old-fashioned. Even to-day anyone you happen to know in the ‘Sweet-pea world’ might make a different choice. The names we give you are the names of the Sweet-peas we like and have grown with success.

•   1. King Edward VII. (vivid red).
•   2. Gorgeous (orange-salmon).
•   3. Blanch Burpee (white).
•   4. Navy Blue (violet-blue).
•   5. Lady Grizel Hamilton (mauve).
•   6. Mrs. Collier (yellow).
•   7. Lovely (pale pink).
•   8. Miss Willmott (salmon-pink).
•   9. Black Knight (maroon).
• 10. Countess Spencer (wavy pink).
• 11. Nora Unwin (frilled white).
• 12. Gladys Unwin (pale pink).

Sweet-peas grow very tall if they are healthy and properly staked, so they should be sown all along the back of your border to make a hedge. If you buy a packet of some expensive variety that gives you only a few seeds, you might sow those separately in a circle.

The best month for sowing is March, and you must dig your trench six inches deep and three inches wide. If there are many mice about who would eat your seeds, it is a good plan to soak them in paraffin a few minutes before sowing. Gardeners often damp them and shake them in powdered red lead, but as this is poison it must be used with care. It is not always effectual, either. We once saw a mouse caught ‘red-handed,’ his little paws coated with the lead we had put on our seed to protect it from him. When your trench is ready, sow your seed singly all along the row, leaving two inches between each seed. If your two borders are each seven feet long, you would sow forty-two seeds on either side, so you see that you can only grow a few kinds in one summer. When you have sown them, do not cover them with all the soil you have dug out. They should only have three inches on them at first, because the seedling wants to find its way up to the spring sun. Later on, when it is a strong plant, and supported by a twig, you can put back the rest of the soil. Sweet-peas are very thirsty plants, and when the long dry days come they like to have their roots deep down in the moist earth.

Their two great enemies are slugs and sparrows. In or near a town where sparrows swarm, you cannot grow Sweet-peas at all unless you protect the young shoots when they first show above the ground—about three weeks, that is, after the seed is sown. Later, when the leaves expand, the birds leave the plants alone. You can buy either ready-made pea-guards or a length of wire-netting, which should be doubled in the middle and put over your row like a long tent, with sticks at either end to keep it firm. If you cannot have wire put a double line of sticks at intervals along your row, and wind black cotton across and across from one stick to the other. This terrifies the sparrows, and they will not go near it. If you have many slugs, you should keep the ground near the seeds sprinkled with soot or lime. As soon as the plants are three inches high, they should be thinned to six inches apart, and should have a row of small twigs stuck all along the line for their tendrils to seize. When they are a foot high, you can earth them up with the soil left on one side of the trench, but you must put it evenly on either side of your Peas. When they reach the top of the little twigs, the tall ones must be put in firmly on either side of the row, and by the middle or end of June your