The seed should be sown in early summer in light, moist, leafy soil. It soon comes up, and when the seedlings have three pairs of leaves they should be pricked out. The Pansy, like the Carnation, has a tiresome trick of producing its best flowers on its poorest plants, so you must be patient and careful with the weak, backward ones, because they may give you the finest blooms. Pansies would rather be moved in autumn than in spring, and remember that they like a rather shady place in your border, and a good loamy soil. They either die or make poor little flowers in hard, dry ground. If you want your Pansies and Violas to go on flowering all the summer, you must be careful to pinch off the dead flowers. The roots you see in London shops and markets, wrapped in hard clay and showing two or three big flowers, will not do much good as a rule. If, however, you have some, and want to keep them alive, you should soak the cake of clay off the fibrous roots, plant in a puddle of water, and protect from the sun and wind for several days with a flower-pot. We have been told by a well-known gardener that she can make anything live by planting it in a pool of water, and out of our own experience we would say that we can make most things live by shading them for some days, except from showers, with a flower-pot. It is most interesting to see how a flagging plant will revive after a few hours of shade and shelter. [Illustration: IRISES] If you have a light, warm soil, you can easily strike cuttings from your best Violas and Pansies. One way is to cut them down in June. A month later a number of young shoots will appear, and these should have soil put amongst them into which they will root themselves. In two or three weeks you can take away these young plants and put them in a nursery bed. A cutting should be set one-third of its length into a little bed of sandy soil that you have previously made smooth and moist. You must always slice them across the stalk just below a joint, and cut off the lower leaves. They should be taken in moist, warm weather, and placed in partial shade. As they grow pinch off the tops, and then they make more roots, and are stronger. We have no great gardening authority for saying so, but from our own experience we should advise you never to cut down a favourite plant for increase, except in showery weather. We have lost many by meddling with them during a drought. If you only have a few Pansies you will not want to cut them down at all in June, but you can look out for young shoots, and try to take a few cuttings. CAMPANULA MEDIUM (CANTERBURY BELL).