sand is cheap it should be used in plenty. In Holland, tulips are grown for the market in a dark-coloured peaty sand, of so loose a texture that the workmen have to wear sand-shoes, which are like little tea-trays tied to their feet, to prevent them sinking into it. This sand is first enriched with cow manure in very considerable quantity, and is then planted with potatoes; the next year it has no manure, and is planted with hyacinths. The next year again it has no manure, and is planted with tulips.

In selecting tulips, the catalogue of a trading florist will furnish ample guidance, and the prices will show how to cut the coat according to the cloth. The Van Thol section flower earliest and are sweet-scented, and therefore invaluable for the table and window. The early single and double are the most useful for the parterre and for growing in pots for the conservatory. The late, comprising more especially Gesneriana and the "Rose" section of the florists' tulips, are fine for late beds and for the fronts of shrubberies.

Convolvulus minor.

SONVOLVULUS MINOR-the preferable name of this plant -is also known as C. tricolor, an appropriate but indefinite name. The prominent colours of the flower are blue upon the limb, yellow in the centre, with an intermediate ring of white. The average height of the plant is a foot to a foot and a half; the leaves are spatulate, fringed with hairs; the whole plant is downy, and of a full green colour.

This extremely beautiful plant is a hardy annual, which may be sown in autumn or spring. It requires a rich, mellow soil and an open situa

tion to develop its characteristics fully; and, when liberally cultivated, it flowers for three months continuously, and a large mass of it presents a most refreshing and exquisite appearance in the early hours of the day. It may, in one sense, be regarded as a sunflower, and there is some utility

in so regarding it, for if a bed on the south side of a house be planted with convolvulus minor, very few of the lovely flowers will ever be seen from the windows. But, on the other hand, a similar bed on the north side will display its flowers to the windows freely, for nine-tenths or more of the whole number produced will be found to face the south and the south-east.

The major convolvulus belongs to another section of the great family of convolvulaceæ, of which there are four conspicuous genera in cultivation. The genus Calystegia includes our great white hedge bind-weed (Calystegia sepium) and the pink-flowered C. pubescens, of which there is a double variety in cultivation, the flowers of which, though poor, may be likened to roses. The genus Ipomoea comprises Ipomoea purpurea, the major convolvulus, and a number of resplendent species, some of which are hardy, but others require strong heat to start the seeds and green-house culture to produce the flowers. One of the most beautiful of this section is I. rubro-cærulea, with large flowers of a brilliant sky-blue colour. It is a greenhouse perennial, native of Mexico. The genus Convolvulus includes the subject of our plate; also C. scammonia, which produces the scammony of commerce, and the little wayside convolvulus, that makes a fairyland of many a mile of dusty English roadside and railway bank-this pretty pink-flowering species being known as C. arvensis. The genus Pharbitis consists for the most part of American annuals, some of which are usually classed under Ipomea.

One of the most important members of this order is the Sweet Potato (Convolvulus batatas). This is largely cultivated in the tropics and the south of Europe for its edible roots, which are sometimes of a club shape, or that of