air can be given without danger to them.  A dry east wind blowing fiercely over them will prove a blast of death.  If they have no air at all, they will be puny, rickety things, scarcely worth planting out.  Choice varieties should be carefully pricked out into pans and pots as soon as large enough; this will promote a fine, stocky growth and a splendid development of flowers.  Take care not to plant out until the weather is favourable, for any great check will undo all your work, and make starvelings of your nurslings.  If you cannot command heat for half-hardy annuals, sow in the first week in April, put the pans in a frame facing south, and the seeds will soon grow and do well.  If that is too much trouble, sow in the open border early in May, making the border rich and friable, that they may have a good chance from the first.

==Tender Annuals.==—­These require the same general treatment as advised for half-hardy annuals.  But it is desirable to sow in a stronger heat than is necessary for annuals that are to be planted out.  It is also requisite to be in good time in pricking out the seedlings, for if they get much drawn they cannot make robust pot plants.  A light, rich, perfectly sweet soil, containing a fair proportion of sharp sand, is necessary to insure plants worth having.  It is also important to get them into separate small pots as soon as possible, and to shift them on to larger and larger pots, until they have sufficient pot room for flowering, after which shift no more.  As soon as these pots are filled with roots, give very weak manure water constantly until the plants are in flower, and then discontinue it, using instead pure soft water only.

==Hardy Biennials and Perennials.==—­These are often sown in pans or boxes, and are pricked off when large enough into other pans or pots before they are transferred to beds or borders.  The system has certain advantages in insuring safety from vermin and proper attention, for it is an unfortunate fact that too many cultivators consider it needless to thin or transplant sowings made in beds or borders.  The plants are frequently allowed to struggle for existence, and the result is feeble attenuated specimens which, with trifling care and attention, might have become robust and capable of producing a bountiful bloom in their season.  Still, it should be clearly understood that all the hardy biennials and perennials may be grown to perfection by sowing on a suitable seed-bed in the open ground, protecting the spot from marauders of all kinds, and by early and fearless thinning or transplanting.  As a rule, we advocate one shift before placing the plants in final positions.

==Abutilon==

==Half-hardy greenhouse perennial==

Handsome plants, two feet or more in height, can be produced from seed and flowered in a single season.  They are useful for training to greenhouse walls, and they may also be transferred to open borders for the summer.  When employed for the latter purpose, the plants should be lifted and put into pots about the end of August, after there has been a penetrating shower.  In the absence of rain a soaking of water on the previous day will prevent the soil from falling away from the roots.