82 HINTS ON THE CULTURE OF THE COMMON WHITE ROCKET. 



its wonted and well-deserved attention this esteemed inhabitant of the 

 flower-garden. 



After reading all the known directions, and obtaining the best 

 information from every possible source, my efforts to obtain strong 

 and healthy plants of the Rocket were ineffectual; I however, after 

 many fruitless attempts, happened to stumble on a plan of my own, 

 that soon completely satisfied my ardent desires to have this favourite 

 in perfection, and it is simply this : let as many pjants as can be 

 obtained the first season, be planted in a free and rich soil, in any 

 open compartment of the garden ; they must not be allowed to bloom, 

 but have every stem pinched off as it appears : this will cause the 

 production of numerous side-shoots, which must be taken off, as they 

 form roots of their own, which may he ascertained by occasional 

 inspection, and transplanted, six inches asunder, into a bed or border 

 that has been previously made very rich by a liberal supply of old 

 dung, and well watered till properly established. All will go on well 

 then if the foliage is kept free from the ravages of that sluggish pest 

 so well known to all cultivators, and which eats or gnaws indiscri- 

 minately almost every herb and flower of the garden, and particularly 

 this, which is only truly valuable when grown exceedingly perfect 

 and robust, and all who have seen it so, I think, must at once admit 

 it to be a most splendid and desirable object of culture. For my own 

 part, I have grown it to two feet high, one half of which has been an 

 unbroken mass of the purest white bloom, to observe which in this 

 matured state I must confess that I can feel l ess pri_4,e certainly, but 

 epiite an equal degree of pleasure, as when bending o'er the penciljed 

 beauties of a Catafalque, the well- formed truss of a Booth's Freedom, 

 or the still dearer and sweeter gem that springs from the bosom of a 

 choice Ranunculus. 



N.B. — I would here bear testimony to the generally lucid and 

 judicious remarks of your Felton correspondent on t)ie business of 

 floriculture, and at the same time suggest, for his or any of your other 

 correspondents' consideration, the very great necessity for a succes- 

 sional descriptive notice of the reputed best half dozen of each of Jhe 

 florists' flowers, beginning with the Polyanthus, pointing out the 

 properties they possess, and those they ought to have, by the existing 

 standards for each, or by others that may be considered improvements 



