ON" IMPREGNATING AND RAISING DAHLIAS FROM SEED. 201 



I am not particular about the compost I grow them in, as they 

 will grow and flower well in any soil in common use ; but I have 

 found from experience, that the fresher our soil the more healthy 

 our plants and the move brilliant the flowers they produce. 

 April lOlh, 1834. Outor. 



ARTICLE VI. — On the Impregnation and Raising of 

 Dahlias from Seed. By Innovator. 



Several applications having been made for a system by which 

 double Dahlias may be raised from seed with the least possible 

 risk, 1 forward you my mode of cross-impregnating them. It 

 matters but little what colours are blended, as two white flowers 

 will produce them of all colours and shades ; but still I prefer 

 getting them as opposite in this respect as possible, except where 

 striped or picoteed flowers are required, in which case I should 

 v av, the nearer you get them alike, the greater will be your chance 

 of success, as the preponderance will always be in favour of the 

 breeder colour. In applying the pollen, (that is, the yellow dust 

 always to be found in the centre of a full-blown flower,) I use a 

 fine camel-hair pencil. The next thing is, where it should be 

 applied. If your readers will draw out a petal from any bloom, 

 and look into its very bottom, they will there see standing up a 

 small brown-coloured point, called by botanists the stigma, or 

 summit of the pistil, which are the female parts of generation in 

 flowers. To this stigma they must apply the pollen with the 

 bru>di, till completely covered. I should say, twelve petals are as 

 many as should be inoculated in any single bloom, as they then 

 produ'-e finer seed than when too many are fructified. The third 

 row of petals from the outside are those I prefer for this purpose. 

 When the seeds are perfectly ripe, gather them, rub them out of 

 the capsules, and keep them perfectly dry till the following March, 

 when ihey may be sown upon a slight hotbed, covered by six 

 inches of sandy soil, buying the seeds in this not more than half 

 an inch. Protect them either by hund-lights or a frame from cold 

 winds and nigbt air till the middle (if May, when thev may be 

 planted out tu flower, which will not disappoint the cultivator, if 

 first-rate flowers were selected as breeders. I huve been Hying 



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