Impatiens balsamina.

N some of the books the plant is catalogued as Balsamina hortensis, but as a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, the amateur gardener need not be troubled about the relative claims of the respective designations. The garden balsam is a tender annual of rapid growth, with an extremely succulent stem, ample full green leafage, and showy flowers of various shades of white, red, rose, and crimson. The generic name Impatiens is explained by the behaviour of the plant when the seeds are ripe, for, on the slightest touch, the seed-pods burst, and the seeds are scattered; and this impatience of the plant may occasion to the cultivator considerable loss. But there is a way out of every difficulty, and the only real difficulty is to know the way. In this case it consists in removing the pods when they are nearly ripe, and placing them on a cloth

or newspaper, or in a bell-glass placed mouth upwards, to ripen; then, as they arrive at perfection, the seeds will be shed, and none will be lost, and if the plants were good, the seed will pay for the trouble of saving.

It is a very strange thing, and hardly to be believed, that there is not to be found in any systematic treatise on gardening a really good code of balsam culture. In plain truth, the books are all wrong upon the subject, and as the opportunity is now offered to put them right, we propose to do so. Let it be understood, then, to begin with, that the right way occasions less trouble than the wrong way, and the result is a free development of healthy leafage and splendid flowers. The essence of the proceeding consists in growing the plant generously and somewhat rapidly from the first, and guarding it against any possible check. Suppose we desire to have a fine bed of balsams. We secure the very best seed, and sow it in light rich soil, in pans or boxes, in the month of April. These pans or boxes should be placed on the sunny shelf of a greenhouse, or in a warm corner of a pit, and be kept moderately watered. The plants will soon appear, and as soon as they have about three rough leaves, they should be pricked out, three or four inches apart, in other boxes, in light rich soil; or be potted separately in thumb-pots, and be again nursed in the warm pit or greenhouse, where they should have plenty of air, and never suffer in the least through lack of water. If they grow fast, and the weather is too cold to permit of planting them out, give them a shift into 60 size (threeinch) pots before they become pot-bound, for, as remarked above, there must be no check whatever. When the weather is warm and dull, say about the first or second week in June, plant them out in a sunny position, in rich

deep soil. We have put them at two feet apart, and they have met long before the season was over; but, for a general rule, perhaps one foot distance may suffice. Give them plenty of water in dry weather, and that is all you need do to them.

In the event of requiring nice specimens in pots, it will be advisable to sow in March, and start the seeds on a hot-bed; then proceed as advised in raising plants for a bed, but instead of planting them out, keep shifting into larger and larger pots, until it is time to stop, and allow the plants to flower. As a rule, an eight-inch pot. is large enough for a very fine plant, and a dozen or two in pots of six to eight-inch size may be turned to good account in the conservatory. When grown in this way, they must have good living and plenty of water, be protected from cold and drying winds, and excessive heat, but always have the fullest daylight and plenty of air. If they appear rather too long in the stem, put them down a little in potting, and the buried portion of the stem will soon throw out roots to the advantage of the flowers that are coming. They require no stakes and no shading, and if the foregoing brief directions are fairly well carried out, that is all you need do to them.

The reader may be ready to exclaim, "I see nothing peculiar in this," and the reader who so exclaims is quite in the right. But turn to the books, and you will find a complicated process prescribed, and so in balsam growing the lover of complications may be gratified. Here is an extract from a respectable book of reference, and there is really something in it :-"When you cannot accommodate any but the best flowers in the greenhouse, adopt the following method. After pricking out into three or fourinch pots, and plunging them in the bed, allow the pots to

get full of roots, keep them drier and cooler, and give plenty of air, which will soon cause flowers to appear; then select plants with best flowers, rub every flower-bud off them, fresh pot, disentangling the roots a little as you proceed, and grow them on as advised above; and what you lose in time you will make up in selectness." These directions provide for a check by allowing the plants to become pot-bound, and for another check by the process of rubbing the flower-buds off, so as to compel the plants to produce another crop. And what is the result? Tall, attenuated plants, with poor flowers on the side stems, and no fine flowers anywhere. We see numerous wretched balsams at flower shows that have been grown in this way. Now, let us ask Nature about it, and her reply will be that the finest flowers are the first produced, and appear in the centre of the plant; therefore the removal of the buds is a mistake, and the imposition of any check is a mistake, and there is no balsam so beautiful as the one that has been generously grown and allowed to flower at its own time and in its own way.