THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 



129 



crimson ; Scarlet Eclipse (would be better 

 named Crimson Eclipse), excellent ; Em- 

 press of Crimsons, a large and substantial 

 flower ; Charles de Rosmini, scarlet-crim- 

 son ; Countess of Ellesmere, crimson-rose, 

 white throat, a gem ; Dr. Andry, amaranth- 

 crimson, striped white, makes a showy 

 bed. Dark : Red Cross Banner, purple- 

 crimson, one of the few double petunias 

 that flower freely when turned out; Her- 

 zog Von Oporto, the colour of claret, with 

 red streaks, opens its flowers well, and is 

 not very particular as to soil or situation, 

 but will drink tremendously ; Gipsy King, 

 mottled purple ; Geant des Batailles, the 

 best of the pui'ples for certainty of charac- 

 ter and general usefulness. All these, 

 except the Queen, may be had now at four 

 shillings a dozen, and the Queen is only 

 three shillings and sixpence a plant; so 

 take your choice, and what you intend to 

 grow next year take cuttings of in July, 

 and grow those cuttings into good plants 

 in five-inch pots, and not allow a single 

 flower off them, and from those plants 

 take your cuttings in February, and next 

 year's bedding- stock will hare vigour of 

 constitution, such as it is impossible to 

 obtain by merely saving plants that have 

 bloomed themselves out all the summer 

 long. 



Serve your seedlings in the same way. 

 Bloom them to prove their goodness, then 

 take cuttings of those that ai*e worth keep- 

 ing, and either save the whole stock to 

 keep over winter, or grow a few cuttings 

 into stools for propagation next spring. 

 Seethe proo f of this in tropceolums; you get, 

 say, ten or twelve seeds of T. elegans for a 

 shilling. Every one will come up and every 

 one will shovvhloom in a sixty pot. Throw 

 away those that are not so good as the 



parent, and keep all that are as good or 

 better. In August tally the plants, strike 

 a few of each, and when they are rooted 

 you may throw the seedlings away. On 

 the first of February put those stock plants 

 into a comfortable dung bed, and cut as 

 fast as they make joints, and next season 

 you may have tropoeolums equal to those 

 at the Crystal Palace. If the original 

 plants had been turned out in the first 

 instauce, they might have grown to the 

 length and thickness of a cable, and with 

 scarce a bloom upon them ; the cutting 

 and cutting again destroys the leaf vigour, 

 and throws the plant into a blooming habit. 

 In the same way, instead of saving your 

 bedded plants of tropseolum, save a few 

 cuttings only, but get them rooted early. 

 Get verbenas on the same way. Be in 

 time all through. Have a few reserve 

 plants to cut from, and leave the beds 

 alone, and instead of being compelled to 

 content yourself with mites of plants that 

 need a month's culture to bring them into 

 bloom, you may bed them out with trusses 

 ready to open on the first day in May that 

 the wind quits the north quarter, and thus 

 take the lead and keep it till the season has 

 run out. Now, too, is the time to get up 

 a stock of genuine spring flowers : consider 

 at once how you will look from March to 

 May next year. Take note of Aubrietia 

 grandiflora, Iberis sempervirens, Alyssum 

 saxatile (which few people have true), the 

 variegated and the common Arabis, as the 

 very best to move about in clumps to make 

 up beds and ribbons of the gayest kind, 

 and to be followed by the best annuals, 

 autumn sown, till the geraniums, verbenas, 

 petunias, cupheas, etc., etc., are ready to 

 take their places in full bloom from the day 

 of planting. 



; 



THE LILIES OE THE EIELD. 



Once a year, on Whit-Tuesday, at St. 

 James's Church, Mitre Square, Aldgate, 

 in the ancient City of London, the rev. 

 pastor preaches a sermon on flowers. On 

 the 29th the good custom was followed as 

 usual, and the young persons attending 

 the service had each of them a charming 

 bouquet A report of the sermon and a 

 most interesting account of the gathering j 

 of the youthful congregation was pub- ! 



lished in the current issue of the City 

 Press, a paper universally read and quoted 

 for its wealth of antiquarian lore, its faith- 

 ful representation of the interests of the 

 City, and, what most concerns us, its fre- 

 quent advocacy of the culture of trees and 

 flowers in the City, a department in which 

 Mr. Broome, of the Temple Gardens, fre- 

 quently renders valuable assistance. 



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