Verbenas

The verbena is one of the most beautiful and most satisfactory of giirden plants. It is free-blooming aud fragrant, and embraces a wide range of colors and shades. lts long period of bloom, together with its other fine qualities, makes this plant a very desirable addition to the sumtner garden. The plants begin to bloom in May or June and continue until checked by quite se veré frosts. A certain florist says: "l'laut verbenas in beds cut in the turf, never on any account plant tliem in old, worn-out garden soil, as they will most assuredly fail. Give them chauge of soil each season, as they do not thrive well two years in the same bed." I am sorry to contradict so good an authority, but I have, üso mauy of my friends, grown verbenas year after year in the saino beds. Sorne years the only caregtven the beds was to weed well, puiling up the too numerous seedlings as well as the weeds, lëaving-only enough to well cover the bed when grownj and working into the soil, around the plants left, a little fertilizer. Rudyard Kipling lias described woman as "a rag, aud a bone, and a bank of hair." Mr. Kipling inay be a good poet, but we can't help thinking