BRIEF REMARKS. 281 



she says, ' Pick out the small plants, Sir ;' I said, ' Madam, why do you 

 wish to have the small ones ?' ' Because,' said she, ' there is a better 

 chance of getting double flowers from small plants.' " This mode of 

 selecting plants may be best in some sort of Stocks, but for the sort I 

 have there is no necessity. Some people (and it is a favourite notion 

 among most people) imagine that if you tie a single Stock to a double 

 there is a greater chance of having double ones ; but I would as soon 

 tie it to the leg of a stool as to a double one, for the chance I should 

 have of double ones. If a bee alights on a double Stock, it will not 

 tarry there a moment, there is nothing there for it. It may be deemed 

 huge presumption in me to suggest to a master in the floral depart- 

 ment, but I would just say, suppose you take seed from the last pod in 

 the Stock, which may be supposed to be the weakest seed on the plant, 

 or seeds from the extremity of any pod, and try them next year. As 

 to the soil they require, it should be rich and deep, but no dung, except 

 it is well decomposed, as new manure is apt to breed worms, which 

 very often injure tiie roots. — J. O. Anthotiy, Providence Mines, near 

 St. Ives. (^Cottage Gardener.) 



Removing large Evergreens. — Of late years planters of ever- 

 greens have been divided into two classes : spring planters, from 

 February to May ; and late autumn planters, who would remove all 

 kinds of evergreens in November. But the most successful planter of 

 evergreens in England — indeed, the best planter of them in the world — 

 Mr. Barron, gardener to Lord Harrington, at Elvaston Castle, iu 

 Derbyshire, has proved beyond a doubt, that midsummer, or between 

 that and the end of July, is the true season in our climate for the 

 removal of very large specimens. He would make no more ado about 

 removing a yew at tiiat season that had been planted in the time of 

 Henry VIII., than some planters would if they had to transplant ten 

 yards of box edging round a bed of roses next Michaelmas. It is 

 asserted by Mr. Barron's friends (for he does not write much himself), 

 that his criterion for the proper time to remove a large evergreen, is 

 when it ceases to make its annual growth. This may happen a few 

 weeks earlier or later in different seasons, according to the lateness or 

 earliness of our springs : therefore, to say that midsummer, or any 

 given period, is preferable to a few weeks before or after it, would not 

 be quite riglit. I have seen enough of plants and planting to convince 

 me that Mr. Barron's time and criterion for this kind of planting are 

 the true ones ; and I shall go one step more — having a proof of the 

 assertion in my poci^et — and say, tiiat wlien a large evergreen is so 

 near the place where it is to be transplanted to, as that the work may 

 be completed in a couple of hours from the time tiie roots are uncovered, 

 the hotter the day and tlie more cloudless the sky, the more surely will 

 the plant succeed, provided there is no screen put between it and the 

 sun in the new situation, as lias been recommended by some. But if 

 the plant has to be removed from a distance, so that its roots and its 

 leaves are acted on by the sim and air longer tlian the balance between 

 them will hold out, tlie work would be more safe in cloudy or rainy 

 weatiier. In either case, and in all planting of large evergreens in 

 summer, the planting is more sure if done in water, that is, to allow an 

 Vol. XVIII. No. 47.— i\'.6'. 2 A 



