ON RAISING HYBRID SEEDLING FUCHSIAS. 29 



raisin ; fold it in paper, and so keep it till the latter end of March 

 or middle of April, according to the season, when the seed must he 

 carefully extracted and thinly sowed in pots of mould, composed of 

 one quarter light loam and three quarters peat, made very fine ; let 

 the surface be kept slightly moist, and the pots be placed in a frame 

 very near the glass. In about six weeks the seed may be expected 

 to break through the earth. As soon as the plants have four leaves, 

 take an early opportunity of planting them in the smallest-sized pots, 

 in equal parts of loam, peat, and leaf mould, with a little white sand. 

 On taking to the earth their growth will be rapid. When the roots 

 reach the side of the pot, shift them into large sixties, and ultimately 

 into forty-eights, keeping them all the time under glass ; but give 

 abundance of air and water, and many of them will blossom before 

 the end of the season. They are capable, of course, of more rapid 

 progress by the rise of artificial heat, when that medium is at com- 

 mand ; but, as already stated, I have pursued the above plan as a 

 matter of experiment only, and such has been my success that from 

 four pods I have more than one hundred and twenty plants. Many 

 of those saved from the shrubby sorts flowered the first season, and 

 promise some pleasing varieties ; but being late in the year, it will 

 require another season to test their qualities fully ; there is, however, 

 in most a great improvement in the beauty of their foliage. I have 

 amongst them about thirty-five plants raised from one pod of fulgent 

 impregnated by grandijlora : not one of these have flowered : they 

 have more the appearance of fulgens, but yet present great variety in 

 habit and foliage. Whilst the tallest of these is not more than eight 

 inches high, many of those from the shrubby exceed two feet. 



I am aware that these simple rules are at variance with, or rather 

 fall short of, the elaborate process pursued by the scientific hybridist ; 

 but they are, nevertheless, capable of producing very pleasurable 

 results to the amateur ; and if they be followed out by reseminifica- 

 tion with fulgens on the most promising of the present hybrids, I 

 feel assured that such experiments must lead to a i ace of phmts far 

 surpassing, in splendour of blossom and stateliness of habitude, any 

 of their progenitors. 



December 23rd, 1840. 



