Dahlias. 117 



crimson, rose, magenta, violet, lavender and pink can never be 

 relied upon from descriptions. They may be any one of these 

 shades for they depend upon factors in cultivation which are little 

 understood and perhaps uncontrollable. Pure and delicate shades 

 of pink can never be reached by such means. Plant-food may 

 deepen them all the way to purple in a single season and they are 

 almost sure to revert to purple ancestors sooner or later. 



Variegated flowers as a class. — Mixed color-effects can rarely 

 compete for strength and brilliancy with singly colored flowers, 

 and they are very unstable. ' 'Selfs' ' have a unity of effect ; their 

 color is single, strong, undivided. Variegated flowers are dis- 

 tracting, and artificial, and remind one of the constant straining 

 after effect. W. C. Denzel is one of the very few dahlias in which 

 two colors are combined to give a soft and delicate single effect. 

 If there is such a thing as a modest dahlia, this is surely one. It 

 is distressing not to be able to recommend such a variety on a 

 year's trial. Next year these same tints may deepen into a pur- 

 ple and a yellow that will conflict with each other. We have 

 altogether too many variegated dahlias and not enough variety in 

 form. They are essentially the most unstable, and the first to 

 suffer from a popular reaction. These fanciful creations can 

 never be permanently popular. The number of people who 

 delight in formal flowers is certainly much greater proportionately 

 in Europe than in America, and this leads me to make a plea for 

 an American evolution of the dahlia. The forcing-house carna- 

 tion is an American product. Carnations are grown mostly out- 

 doors in Europe in beds and borders. They have short stems and 

 a sudden rush of bloom in summer, and then all is over until 

 another year. They are painted and penciled and marked in all 

 sorts of ways foreign to our taste. Picotees can never have the 

 permanent prosperity in America that they do in England ; 

 Americans want long-stemmed carnations the year round. We 

 should never have had midwinter carnations at twenty-five 

 cents a dozen if we had stuck to the old European lines of evo- 

 lution. 



Ihe need of live colors. — It often h.^ppens that dahlias which are 

 full of glowing color in the sunligh . are very tame and subdued 

 in the shade. Mr. Peacock the dahlia specialist of Atco, N. J., 



