THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 87 



stakes. The safest time for twisting the growth of the Poinsettia 

 is just as it begins to harden, which is usually about the end of 

 August. The plants intended for furnishing a supply of cuttings 

 should not be shaken out until after the cuttings are secured, and 

 not then utiles* the stock is short, because it is much belter to 

 throw them away. 



MAIZE, ITS USE AND CULTURE. 



BY THE BEV. TH. C. BREHAUT, 



Of Richmond House, Guernsey. 



[T the meeting of the Royal Horticultural Society in 

 December, 1870, Mr. Brehaut exhibited a large and 

 interesting collection of Maize, grown in his garden in 

 Guernsey. It was accompanied by an interesting paper 

 on its uses and culture, of which we give an abstract: — 

 An experience of three very dissimilar seasons has been gained 

 since 1867. A certain number of varieties have been discarded, 

 either as too small, too coarse, or as ripening at too late a period of 

 the season to make them generally serviceable. It was to be expected 

 that the sorts which ripened the earliest would become most in 

 demand, but there were other conditions to be fulfilled before Maize 

 could be able to hold its ground against so many new and known 

 vegetables. It was not so much a variety which should serve for 

 cattle, or poultry, or even for grinding into flour, which was required, 

 for 3uch are now commonly imported more cheaply — at least, so it 

 seems at present — than they can be grown in our climate; but it 

 was sought to popularize the manner of eating Maize so common in 

 the States of America, and in other regions of the world (including 

 even Southern Europe), as " green corn," i.e., in a semi-ripened con- 

 dition, when the grains had acquired the consistency and size of good 

 Marrowfat peas. The addition of a table vegetable of this delicious 

 and nutritious nature — the food of millions of the human race — and 

 yet, for want of experience of the sorts adapted to our climate, so 

 strangely unappreciated here, seemed of no inconsiderable import- 

 ance, the more so as it ripened in the late autumn, reproducing then 

 the lost flavours of the early pea and of the asparagus. For this the 

 ordinary yellow Maize is not suited, so that its cidture becomes of 

 little value. But the collection here exhibited claims not only to be 

 the most complete which has probably ever been presented in 

 Europe, but it also shows varieties which greatly excel the Maize 

 known in this country and in France in size and in flavour, while 

 they still fulfil the special conditions required in earliness. More 

 than this, these ears are grown from seeds acclimated by three varied 

 reasons in the Channel Islands, and are even immediately sprung 

 from seeds of plants growing in the damp and sunless season of 1869, 

 which plants were prostrated to the earth when at their fullest and 

 most critical season of growth, on Sept. 12th, under the weight of a 



