mas. This is excellent where space is of account,
and also where more sweet peas are planted for their early yield than
can be kept in good shape the whole season. Centaurea or cornflower, the
bachelor's button or ragged sailor of old gardens, is in the front rank
of the worthies. The flowers have almost the keeping qualities of
everlastings, and are of easy culture, while the sweet sultan, also of
this family, adds fragrance to its other qualities. The blue cornflower
is best sown in a long border or bed of unconventional shape, and may be
treated like a biennial, one sowing being made in September so that the
seedlings will make sturdy tufts before cold weather. These, if lightly
covered with salt hay or rough litter (not leaves), will bloom in May
and June, and if then replaced by a second sowing, flowers may be had
from September first until freezing weather, so hardy is this true, blue
_Kaiser-blumen_.

All the poppies are worthy, from the lovely Shirley, with its
butterfly-winged petals, to the Eschscholtzia, the state flower of
California.

One thing to be remembered about poppies is not to rely greatly upon
their durability and make the mistake of expecting them to fill too
conspicuous a place, or keep long in the marching line of the garden
pageant. They have a disappointing way, especially the great,
long-stemmed double varieties, of suddenly turning to impossible
party-coloured mush after a bit of damp weather that is most
discouraging. Treated as mere garden episodes and massed here and there
where a sudden disappearance will not leave a gap, they will yield a
feast of unsurpassed colour.

To me the Shirley is the only really satisfactory annual poppy, and I
sow it in autumn and cover it after the fashion of the cornflower, as
it will survive anything but an open, rainy winter, and in the resulting
display that lasts the whole month of June it rivals the roses in
everything but perfume.

Godetia is a good flower for half-shady places that it is difficult to
fill, and rings the colour change from white through pink to crimson and
carmine. Marigolds hold their own for garden colour, but not for
gathering or bringing near the nose, and zinnias meet them on the same
plane.

The morning-glory tribe of _ipomaea_ is both useful and decorative for
rapid-growing screens, but heed should be taken that the common
varieties be not allowed to scatter their seeds at random, or the next
season, before you know it, e