TEE FLOEAL WORLD AND aARDEN GUIDE. 



129 



as Kew, Crystal Palace, or Hampton 

 Court, and liovr worthy are they to 

 be admired as far surpassing any, 

 even the best effects of the common 

 scarlets. The fact is it needs courage 

 to use them more than skill, and the 

 masters of the art have acquired 

 courage by long and patient school- 

 ing, which few amateurs have had. 

 Our readers ought to secure the 

 following as invaluable : — Imperial 

 Crimson, Stella, llival Nosegay, Car- 

 minatum Improved, and those just 

 named above. Suppose you do not 

 want to bed any of them, they will 

 still be fine things for pot culture, to 

 fill boxes and vases, or to plant about 

 on banks and in tree roots, or to put 

 in the reserve ground for cut flowers. 

 All the nosegays require a fresh, poor, 

 sandy soil, and full sun, and every 

 old plant is worth six young ones. 



Christine has acquired nearly as 

 great a fame as Tom Thumb, and it 

 is the best of all the old rose-coloured 

 geraniums for ordinary purposes. At 

 Kensington last year they put it 

 aside for Rose Queen, and on some 

 soils Lucea rosea is a more manage- 

 able kind in the same colour. Chris- 

 tine has these excellences, that it never 

 grows rank, always keeps breaking 

 from the bottom, so as to be compact 

 and bushy, and blooms during as long 

 a period without exhaultion as any 

 geranium known. But it has its 

 faults, all of them trifling but one, 

 and that one must be named as a 

 great fault. It is a tremendous seeder. 

 From one plant which stood in a cir- 

 cular window, and was the admiration 

 of the whole village last year, I 

 picked as much seed as would pretty 

 well plant all the gardens of the 

 village with seedlings were they put 

 to that purpose ; but it is no joke to 

 keep the seeds off" a bed, and in a 

 large place kept in first-rate order, a 

 good bed of Christine would need 

 very nearly the whole time of one 

 man to attend to it. No wonder the 

 breeders have kept this defect in 

 mind in proving their seedlings of 

 this lovely bedder. Among the hun- 

 dreds of good seedlinjjs of Christine 

 there are two now competing for the 

 special favour of the putilic. Messrs. 

 Carter send out one raised by Mr. 



Beaton, and called Helen Lindsay. 

 This produces large trusses and large 

 flowers, has the same dull green 

 mollis sort of leaf of the parent, the 

 flowers are clear warm rose colour, 

 and they produce very few seeds. 

 Messrs. E. G. Henderson offer an- 

 other called Alexander, raised by M. 

 Bibouillard, which is said to beat 

 Christine and Helen Lindsay. The 

 proof of the pudding is in the eating, 

 and I am eating both, and endeavour- 

 ing to make up my mind which is 

 best. But it is too early yet. I have 

 them in bloom side by side in pots, 

 and in the open ground, and they^are 

 both better than Christine in a small 

 state ; what they will be the season 

 through and which will win the race 

 remains to be seen. 



When we turn to the variegated 

 geraniums, we encounter the tricolor 

 race as the crowning glory of the 

 class. Anybody who can manage 

 Golden Chain can manage Mrs. Pol- 

 lock, and as it has come down from a 

 guinea to three half-crowns a plant, 

 it may be classed with poor men's 

 bedders because it is just the right 

 sort of practice for a genuine garden 

 enthusiast to get up a stock of such a 

 gem as this. Messrs. E. Gr. Hender- 

 son have embarked in tricolors to an 

 enormous extent, and have whole 

 houses full, and filling again from the 

 propagators as fast as customers sw^eep 

 the strong plants away. Mrs. Milford 

 goes at a fourth the price of Mrs. 

 Pollock, and is certainly some shades 

 less attractive, for, all things consi- 

 dered, Mrs. Pollock shows the grand- 

 est foliage of any geranium known, 

 and in a well-kept bed is like a bedded 

 rainbow. Getting away from these 

 by an intermediate passage, are our 

 readers generally acquainted with 

 Lady of Loretto, a shy bloomer of the 

 Cerise Unique strain, and with the 

 most lively, neat, and tasteful zoned 

 leaf of all except the genuine tri- 

 colors. Next we come to the Gold 

 Leaf race, and here our original ver- 

 dict has been verified in all the good 

 gardens, and Cloth of Gold has 

 eclipsed that charming, but sometmes 

 troublesome variety, Golden Chain, 

 which none will bed now but such as 

 are so used to it, and so prej udiced in 



