196 



THE GARDENER'S MONTHLY 



[July. 



four fert high. The leaf-marking is exquisitely 

 beautiful. The color and style of variegation is 

 almost identical with that of Alocasia macro- 

 rhiza variegata, the well-known hothouse plant. 

 The stems are marbled, green and white ; some 

 of the leaves are all white, some striped and 

 mottled, with a beautiful shade of " pea" green. 

 The white has a creamy tinge. As it approaches 

 flowering the stock is all white, as well as the 

 pedicels and calyx. The flowers are a purplish . 

 pink, and in large clusters, and contrast charm- 

 ingly with the foliage. I have never seen any- , 

 thing so pretty for a group of foliage by itself of, 

 green and white, as this. Only about ten per 

 cent of the seedlings are said to be variegated. : 

 But as the second, or at most third, pair of 

 leaves show the variegation, it is an easy matter 

 to pull up the plain ones, which should at once 

 be done, or they will stifle the others. 



In closing, I desire to recommend once again, 

 for bedding jjlants, the tuberous Begonias. I 

 find them the easiest of culture, and the most 

 continuous bloomers of anything with w'hich I 

 am acquainted. At first I gave them shade and 

 a good deal of extra care, but I find they will 

 stand rain, or sunshine, or heat better than 

 Zonale geraniums, particularly rain, as that 

 ruins, for the time, a geranium bed. There is 

 but one obstacle to their becoming as popular 

 as the latter, that being the comparatively high 

 price at which the}' are held. They are showy 

 in the garden, and for cut blooms nothing is 

 prettier, or lasts longer after cutting. Have a 

 bed of them — everybody. 



SEEDS AND SEED SOWING. 



BY WILLIAM SUTHERLAND, PHILADELPHIA. 



Every season we hear numerous complaints 

 on the failure of seeds to germinate, etc. We 

 hear that seeds were procured from such and 

 such a firm and not one came up ; seeds were 

 gotten from another place and one half germi- 

 nated ; and seeds that were obtained from another 

 prominent seedsman all came up. Now the 

 amateur is convinced that seedsman No. 1 is a 

 rascal and gives his verdict accordingly; seeds- 

 man No. 2, although not quite so bad as No. 1, is 

 nevertheless not an honest man, — of this he is 

 quite convinced ; and says that No. 3 is the only 

 reliable one, etc. Now this certainly looks very 

 bad for seedsmen Nos. 1 and 2, but the puschaser 

 never seems to reflect that perhaps the season is 

 more advanced by the time he gets his orders 



filled from No. 3, consequently the weather is 

 more favorable to their germination. 



Some seeds require heat and will not vegetate 

 freely without it, such as Tomato, Coleus, Lan- 

 tana. Others again will grow more freely in a 

 cool atmosphere, and will often lay dormant until 

 the weather is cool. Cabbage, Pansies and Sweet 

 Alj-ssum seed are good examples of these. 

 Many seeds that vegetate freely out of doors, lay 

 dormant for a long time under glass. I have 

 known Clematis, Smilax,. Verbena and Lantana 

 to lay dormant in the soil of the seed boxes for 

 six months, and then being exposed to the air 

 vegetate freely. 



I am satisfied, from the experience of others 

 and by experiments made by myself, that there 

 is as much imjjortance in the way the seeds are 

 sown and the condition they are kept as there is 

 in the freshness of the seeds. Many seeds ger- 

 minate more freely by being soaked in warm 

 water, such as Cypress Vine, Canna, Thun- 

 bergia, whilst this process would be the death 

 warrant for many of the seeds of Palms, Cac- 

 tuses, etc. There can be no set law made for 

 sowing seeds, as almost every kind has its own 

 peculiar wants, and the cultivator must or ought 

 to study their peculiar requirements if he wishes 

 j success. A pretty safe rule to go by in sowing is 

 to bury the seeds no deeper than the seed is 

 thick ; for instance, if the seed is l-8th of an 

 inch thick, it may be buried l-8th of an inch 

 deep, or a very little deeper. More seeds are 

 killed by being buried too deep than by being 

 sown too shallow. Any ordinary sound seed 

 will vegetate if no more than two years old, and 

 many kinds, such as Zinneas, Asters and Chrys- 

 anthemums, actually seem to improve by keep- 

 I ing two or three years. 



i The plan I follow in sowing fine seeds is to take 

 boxes of any convenient size or shape, but no 

 more than 2J inches deep ; glass box for instance, 

 sawed in half makes two complete boxes or 

 flats, and sometime^ furnish the frame for a 

 ' third. If it has no cracks, I bore holes in it 

 for drainage ; and then cover the bottom with 

 any loose sicTings, broken pots or a thin layer of 

 moss, to the depth of half an inch. Over this 

 i I fill in, to within an inch of the top, with fine 

 soil composed of sand, leaf mold, and loam in 

 : equal parts, press it firmly and gently down, 

 ' making an even surface ; then soak the whole 

 with water through a fine rose water can, and 

 ■ an hour afterwards, when drained off", sow the 

 seeds on the wet soil and cover lightly with fine 



