THE BALSAM HOUSE. 147 
flower, and from the base of the lower laterals; and if 
it is saved from the extremities of either the laterals 
or the main spike, none but the commonest single 
flowers will be the result in the next generation. 
Mark, learn, and digest this fact, and prove the truth 
of my remarks. No Balsam seed can be guaranteed to 
produce double flowers if these conditions are not 
observed. It is the same with Stock seed, but each 
can be warranted to produce double flowers—at least 
ninety out of every hundred will come double—if 
carefully saved according to these rules; and that is 
how it is that some customers can be served from the 
same firm with all good double seed, while others will 
get, perhaps, not one double flower in five hundred 
plants. There is no such a thing as changing the 
constitution of the present seed by cultivation. You 
can produce as fine-grown specimens of the Balsam as 
you please by high cultivation, but if the seed is not 
constituted to produce double flowers by virtue of the 
concentrated juices of the plant, none, or but a very 
very small percentage, will come double. Hence the 
necessity of selecting seed from the main spike, and 
from the first flowers of the plant. These only are 
warrantable, and those who save seed otherwise do so 
at all hazards of reputation. 
This careful saving of both Balsam and Stock seed, 
as well as that of Mangel Wurzel, Beet, Cabbage, 
Broccoli, &e., is of the utmost importance. In the case 
of the Balsam and Stock, the flowers should be thinned 
out, and all except those up the main spike and at the 
base of the laterals should be taken off, thus concen- 
trating all the powers of the plant in the remaining 
flowers. This is the only really safe guarantee that 
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