68 THE FLORIST AND P0M0LOGIST. [March, 



I -will here add a few hints on my latest practice in seed-taking. First of all, 

 when the flowers are tolerably well in bloom, I select a few of such as I con- 

 sider most likely to form good female parents, and others to fertilize with, and 

 watching the opportunity when the one flower is in readiness to receive the 

 pollen from the other, I carefully take off with a small pair of tweezers, such as 

 are used for dressing Carnations, &c, four out of the six anthers ; I then take 

 one, or more if required, from the male flower, and apply it to the stigma of the 

 other. That is all that is required ; only the flower must be caught at the proper 

 time, for when once the pollen is applied while the stigma is open it is sufficient ; 

 in two or three hours after it will turn of a pinkish colour, and close up, so that 

 neither bee nor anything else can interfere with its inoculation. To get really 

 choice seeds, choice and first-class flowers must be made use of. The time for 

 rearing seedlings from inferior flowers is gone by. There are opportunities now 

 for those who may have the inclination to engage in seedling raising, such as no 

 one had thirty or forty years ago. We have new flowers now which possess 

 almost every requisite property, and which by some of us are thought to have 

 almost reached perfection. Such as these are now-a-days in the market, and 

 may be purchased at one-fifth the price which had to be paid formerly for sorts 

 with which we would not now cumber our gardens. At the present time we are 

 numerously supplied with first-class Bizarres, both of those termed darks and reds, 

 in my opinion sufficiently so to admit of dividing them, and thus to make two 

 classes. That is a subject which requires to be settled, and which I should like 

 to see adopted at our next national exhibition. 



I particularly advise those who intend to try their hand at seedling raising, to 

 be careful to cross or impregnate with the same colour, viz., a Eose with another 

 Eose, a Byblomen with a Byblomen, a Eed Bizarre with another Eed Bizarre, and 

 a dark Bizarre with a dark Bizarre ; for with every care we can use, there will be 

 plenty of the tricolors, and others belonging to no particular class. 



Huddersfield. John Hepwobth. 



THE CULTIVATION OF ALPINE PLANTS. 



5lj](x'EW things are, generally speaking, worse cultivated than are Alpine Plants. 

 CJsfc' Even the most successful exhibitors are apt to look, about a day before a 



fshow, for the best flowering cuttings of such things as Iberis Pruiti, and 

 sticking four or five of these into a pot, present that as a " specimen." 

 Now, what is so easily grown into the neatest of real specimens as an Iberis ? 

 By merely plunging in the ground a few G-in. pots filled with rich soil, and putting 

 in them a few young cutting plants, they would, " left to nature," be good speci- 

 mens in a short time, while with a little pinching, and feeding, and pegging-down, 

 they would soon be fit to grace any exhibition. So it is with many other things 

 of like habit and size — the dwarf shrubby Lithospermum, for example ; a little 

 time, and the simplest skill, will do all that is required. From amongst such 



