Sweet William (Dianthus Barbatus).
One celebrated lady who writes about gardens says that she does not like Sweet Williams, because they remind her of the plush chairs in German furniture shops. We think ourselves that the ordinary red ones are rather stiff and flaunting; but the new salmon-pink and deep rose-coloured ones are not a bit like red plush, and they make lovely patches of colour in our gardens; also, they are easy to raise and manage. If you grow them from seed, sow out of doors in April, prick out when the plants are large enough, and transfer to permanent quarters in September. Next year you can take cuttings from the best plants when they have done flowering. You are always told by skilful gardeners that a cutting should be sliced straight through the stalk just beneath a joint, and planted in sandy soil and slight shade to make roots; but now we will tell you how an unskilful gardener, who found cuttings difficult, increased her Sweet Williams with perfect ease. It may be the wrong way, but the Sweet Williams did not seem to think so. When they had quite done flowering, each plant had sent up a quantity of young green shoots that evidently did not mean to make flowers that summer; so the unskilful gardener took up her best clumps, tore each one into from twelve to twenty pieces, planted them in fine, rather moist soil in partial shade, and by late autumn saw that every one was doing well and making a good plant for next year.