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Show I Cultivated Wild Flowers IrpHE once-despised daisy has bo-I bo-I J- come a fashionablo flower within recont years, and Is now grown In great quantities for market in grcen-I grcen-I houses. Likewise, the dandelion is being improved by cultivation, and may yet be developed Into a really magnificent flower, golden yellow, five or six Inches In diameter and with petals multiplied in number. The original chrysanthemum, from which all tho superb varieties we know today aro descended, was, In its wild state, no bigger or handsomer than a dandelion. It is found that tho latter grows with astonishing rapidity and luxuriance of bloom undor cheesecloth cheese-cloth shade-Buttercups shade-Buttercups of several varieties and superior size' (the plants being multiplied multi-plied by dividing tho roots) are now grown in hothouses; likewise yellow and red violets. In late winter there Is a great demand for cultivated spring wild flowers, ahead of the season; also for pansles, which themselves were wild flowers and unknown to gardens up to 1810. ' In that year a little girl named Mary Bennot, a daughtor of tho Earl of Tankerville, undertook to plAnt In her garden at Walton-on-Thames every variety of pansy she could find. Before Be-fore long pansy culture became the rage, and even to tho present day It is a popular fad in Europe. Hitherto it has not been found practicable prac-ticable to tame tho wild mayflower or trailing arbutus, but discovery has recontly been made of the faot that it will grow luxuriantly In pots If supplied with soil composed of half-rottod half-rottod oak loaves mixed with 10 por cent of sand and a liberal quantity of small, broken bits of old flowerpots for drainage. , Now that this has been ascertained, It is presumable that tho much-admired arbutus will be grown before long in quantities under glass for tho late winter market- In the wild state It Is already raro, owing largely to tho eager persistence with which. In springtime peoplo seek and pluck the blossoms, or even dig up the plants, thus depriving them of an opportunity to produce seeds and keep tho species going. |