10 MARCH 1950, Page 18

In the Garden One of the flowers with which experiment

has been particularly busy is the Sweet William, for which most people have an old-fashioned affection. Its nature is to be a biennial or near-biennial. There is now a very sweet-scented annual of various colours, Sutton's Summer Beauty. Again the plant has been crossed and recrossed with its cousins, and all manner of queer and interesting hybrids, some of them near- perennials, have been " invented " by Allwoods, who made the popular Allwoodii carnations. For good work in this field the head of the firm has just been specially honoured by the R.H.S.

W. BEacii THOMAS: