122 



JOUBNAL OF HORTICULTUBE AND COTTAGE GAEDENEE. 



[ FebnuiTy IS, 1P88. 



he better for many of us to exchange plants or cuttings, or, 

 where the extent of the place allows of it, to take cuttings from 

 one description of soil to plant on another, so as to afford the 

 change that socnis so necessaiT to the well-being of the plants ? 

 Many largo jilaces afford such opportunities of exchanging 

 plants, nevertheless in most it woiUd seem to be better to im- 

 port these from a distance, and from places differing consider- 

 ably from that to which they are brought. I do not know 

 whether the lulvantages said to result from seed Wheat being 

 imported from a cold, bleak, imd unkindly ])h»ce to one more 

 favoured bo real or not, but the poor place wants a change 

 also, and this cannot he done on the same principle. Changes, 

 however, may be beneticial, even when the uutural conditions 

 seem to be adverse rather than favourable, where the indi- 

 viduals occupying a particular soil show signs of being tired of 

 it, and this is often done. 



That change of soil and situation is attended with other 

 lesiUts than the mere infusion of more robustness of growth is 

 now and then apparent in the case of distinct species. The 

 Hydrangea planted in one class of soil produces bright pink- 

 coloured flov.ers, while in a peat soil of a certain chiss its 

 ■flowers are blue ; yet both plants appear heallliy. So marked a 

 difference, however, is not met with in other plants, neverthe- 

 less some change is often perceptible ; but a distinct species 

 ■will retain a certain amount of vigour under all circumstances, 

 unless, indeed, it be placed where it ought not to be. Let us 

 take, for example, some plants that possess all the distinctions 

 of original species, and we seldom meet with disease amongst 

 ihem ; but changes of soil and situation are productive of other 

 xesults. and, as in the case of the Hydiangea and some of our 

 [popular flowering plants, these present us with slightly different 

 .shades of colour when placed imder different circumstances. 

 Now and then examples of such variations are met with, and 

 I will give an account of one that occurred some years ago, 

 and in which it happened that both ilr. Fish and myself were 

 interested. 



When visiting Mr. Fish half-dozen or more years ago I 

 "thought a Verbena which he, like myself, gi-ew rather exten- 

 sively, differed from mine in colour. I brought a lot of cuttings 

 home with me, and propagated them, keeping them a])art from 

 ithose which I had, but planting them close together at the 

 ipropcr time. The kind, I may observe, was one with which 

 •there is seldom a mistake, being the old pulchella. Well, when 

 flowering-timo came there was a decided difference in the tints 

 of the bloom when seen in quantity, that produced by the cut- 

 .tings which I had from Jlr. Fish having r. more lilac tint, 

 while that of my own plants was more of a lavender blue. 

 This difference was tolerablj- apparent throughout the season, 

 and there was so much diversity of opinion as to the relative 

 merits of the two coloiu-s, that at the end of the season a quan- 

 tity of each sort was propagated, one being named the light, 

 and the other the dark. In the following season, however, the 

 distinction between the two was all but imperceptible, and 

 although care was taken in selecting cuttings from both again, 

 rno one could recognise any difference in the third year ; and I 

 may add that even in the first year the difference between the 

 blooms of ilr. Fish's variety and my own was not so marked at 

 this place as at that from which the cuttings came. Now, to 

 what can we attribute the above difference but to the altered 

 conditions in which the plant found itself? the habit being 

 alike both at Putteridgeburj- and here, and the character of the 

 flower in eveiy respect the same, except in colour, wliich it is 

 easy to beUeve arose from the substances on which the plant 

 fed. 



This case, I believe, might be corroborated by others of n 

 like kind, but I will only mention one more, and that is the 

 Wue Lobelia, which I have vainly endeavoured to obtain of the 

 .deep dark purple tint which it exhibits at so many other places. 

 That soil and situation, or one of them, or some other con- 

 dition, prevents the attainment of this object I certainly be- 

 lieve ; for although I have at various times procured plants or 

 cuttings of kinds remarkable for the brightness of their colour- 

 ing they seem to become paler when they are transported to our 

 soil. Neither is seed exempt from the same resiUt ; in fact, I 

 think seedlings have a greater tendency to become pale than 

 cuttings, although both are used. 



lieforring again to the case of the Calceolaria, which presents 

 fewer varieties than most of our popular bedding plants, ren- 

 dering it, therefore, desirable to preserve good useful varieties 

 true to their characters for as long a time as possible, I have 

 no doubt that changing the ground in which they are grown 

 jrill materially tend to promote this. It has long been the 



custom of the farmer and cottager to have their seed com and 

 Potatoes from other ground, and to obtain fresh ofter growing 

 either for a few seasons on their own land ; and in the caae of 

 a plant which is reproduced by an extension of itself rather 

 than by forming an inde]>endent existence, the change seems 

 to be more necessary. There are before us examples enongh 

 of old kinds of plants falling into decay. Many people Jiow 

 complain of Tom Thumb Geranium not being equal to what it 

 was, and this degeneracy would doubtless be in some meaanie 

 prevented by the same process as that adopted with the Caloeo- 

 laria. Other plants are equally likely to be influenced by change 

 from one place to another. This is a subject deserving of more 

 attention than it has hitherto received, and when fully under- 

 stood many of those failures to which mony plants ore liable 

 will be less frequent than they now arc. Though the power 

 to prevent them may not in all cases exist, it is something to 

 be able to know the cause, and in the case of many of our com- 

 mon bedding plants much may be done to effect a change for 

 the better. 



I can with every couiidenoc indorse Mr. Fish's views on "the 

 propriety of now and then having changes of plants, and if 

 by so doing our gardens can be made more guy, and plants 

 less liable to die off, some good will have been effected ; and I 

 have no doubt but such wUl be the result where the plan has 

 that fair trial wliich it deserves. — J. Bobsok. 



VIOLA COKNUTA AND ITS CULTURE. 



This was introduced fi-om Spain to the royal gardens at £ew, 

 by Dr. Ortega, in 1770. A very correct figure of it appears 

 in Curtis's •' Botanical Magazine," vol. xxi., plate 791. It is 

 strange that tlie plant should have remained imnoticod by any 

 one, with the exception of its being iigiued and described in the 

 "Botanical Magazine" above referred to, for nearly ninety 

 years, more especiaUy as it offers a shade of colour that has been 

 so long wanted for toning down, and giving effect to the many 

 strong and glowing colours which we possess amongst our bed- 

 ding plants. The plant would, no doubt, have perished long 

 ago but for its extreme hardiness. It thrives in any common 

 soil without care, and when once the plant is established there 

 is some difficulty in eradicating it, as the smallest piece of the 

 root will grow if left in the soil, and will soon produce a plant. 



It flowers very profusely in a dry soil, but thrives better, and 

 produces larger and more lughly-developed flowers, when grown 

 in a rather moist and jiartially shaded situation. It seeds very 

 freely, and may be propagated either from seeds or cuttings. 

 The present is a good time to propagate it in either way. 



The seed should be sown in shallow pans, and should be 

 buried in the soil about Ij or "2 inches deep; the pans should 

 then be placed in a cold pit or frame. 



Cuttings may be pricked out in pans : or some good sandy 

 loam may be put into a pit or frame, if there is enough of cut- 

 tings at hand to fill a small box. If, as will most likely be 

 the case, only a few cuttings are to be had at this early period 

 of the plant's second advent, they had better be pricked out in 

 pots or pans, and placed in a cold frame or pit as recommended 

 above for the seed. As soon, however, as tliey are nicely rooted 

 they should be pricked out into a small frame or cold pit in 

 some rich sandy soil, where they will grow very rapidly, and 

 by the end of March they will have made good, stioug plants, 

 when they may again be divided into a great number. They 

 should then be planted out in nurseri--beds, and by the first 

 week in May the plants will be ready for planting out in their 

 final quarters, where they will at once begin flowering veij' 

 freely. The small plants" in the seed-pans should have similar 

 treatment to that recommended for the cuttings, but should 

 not be pricked out before they have made the third or fourth 

 pair of leaves. 



■Where early spring flower gardening is carried out, cuttings 

 should be struck early hi August and September, and the plants 

 placed in theii- final quarters about the end of October. I in- 

 tend, as I before stated, when I first mentioned the adapta- 

 bilitv of Viola comuta as a bedding plant, in my description of 

 the bedding-out at Oulton Park, to try some experiments m 

 crossing it with Mr. Tyerman's varieties of Viola montana, as 

 well as with manv of the other Violas and Pansies. The late 

 Ml-. Beaton's double bedding Pansy will be one selected for a 

 series of experiments with Mola comuta ; and if I can suooeed 

 in uniting the varied colours of the Pansy, and the delioions 

 odour of the common Violas, with the habit and constitution of 

 V. comuta, combined with its prof use flowering all through the 



