220 THE FLORIST. 



size as will produce this result; and rarely is it that a size exceeding 

 10 inches is required. The best and most successful cultivators, 

 indeed, occupy this with three, and sometimes (when small or weakly) 

 four plants. 



I have jotted this down, Mr. Editor, because I want to see this 

 good old flower, " the fairest o' the season," more understood and 

 more cultivated, not as I have so often lamented, singled out simply 

 for a persecution more intolerable than any recorded in Fox's Lives 

 of the Martyrs. 



Popular enough indeed it is, in the sense of being prized and de- 

 lighted in by almost all ; but how few there are who understand its 

 simple requirements, or understanding, render them ! How many of 

 our great establishments are there boasting of a passable collection ? 

 and yet well done, what flower is there to excel its manifold beauties ? 

 Coming in during the heat of summer, when the conservatory and 

 greenhouses are denuded of all their glory, in the hands of an intelli- 

 gent gardener, it should be regarded as a godsend (as assuredly it 

 is); but how few, alas! avail themselves of its advantages. When 

 these are pointed out, what is the too frequent reply ? — " Yes, you can 

 do it ; you can do it ; but it is past us." 



Another evil arising out of this erroneous mode of cultivation is 

 found in the lateness of the bloom from plants so treated. How fre- 

 quently is the complaint made by Florists not so circumstanced as to 

 warrant the remark, "We cannot bloom our plants with you; our 

 bloom is so late." Late ! assuredly it is ; and how can they expect 

 to reach the goal — starting a century in the rear — with competitors 

 of the present day ? 



Experience has convinced me there is not half the difficulty in 

 blooming the Carnation, nearly at the same time, even in widely- 

 separated districts, as has been so generally assumed. A case in 

 point occurred during the past season, when, on my return from the 

 National Exhibition at York, some days after the 3d of August, I 

 called, in Derby, on Mr. Dodwell, and, much to my surprise, found his 

 collection only just rising into bloom. I then learnt, in answer to a 

 remark of mine, that the whole of his flowers shewn at York were cut 

 from some sixty or seventy pots, which, from planting-out time, had 

 been standing in the frames, and which from that circumstance were 

 full a week before the others. Not more than a dozen of the pots of 

 plants so circumstanced required any forcing to be ready for the 

 exhibition, though the general bloom was not on before the 10th 

 or 12th August. 



What has been done may be repeated ; and now that the " Na- 

 tional" offers to honourable effort distinction previously unknown, I 

 urgently invoke all lovers of the flower, whether amateur or pro- 

 fessional, fairly to support its claims to regard, to which very de- 

 sirable end a simple attention to my "radical" rules will very 

 materially conduce. Z. 



