176 THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 



most beautiful of all the kinds of stocks, the Bromptons, get killed by 

 the severity of the winter ; but this may be avoided by taking up the 

 plants before winter, aud potting them, or by planting them in spare 

 melon pit or cold frame, and afterwards replanting them into the open 

 ground in spring ; but they never flower so well or grow so large as 

 when they survive the winter in the open border. In saving the seed 

 much depends ; for stocks, as well as all highly domesticated plants 

 annually reproduced from seed, are very subject to degenerate, and it 

 requires a constant vigilance to preserve or improve the race. I shall 

 now endeavour to find out what is the best means of obtaining double 

 flowers with good colours. In selecting the plants from which to 

 save seed, choose always those with brightest and clearest colour, 

 broadest petals, densest flower-spikes, most numerous side branches, 

 and dwarfest habit ; and avoid all those plants with few lateral 

 branches, robust habit, thinly-set flower-spike, and broken colours. 

 Mucb also depends on the season ; for if the summer should prove a 

 very dry and warm one, the seeds will be much better as regards 

 the production of double flowers ; while, on the contrary, if the 

 summer 'should prove to be cold and wet, nearly all the plants will 

 be single ; and this accounts why the German-saved seed is always 

 superior to that saved in England. It should also be observed that 

 the seed of each colour aud kind of Stock should be saved at as great 

 a distance from the other as possible ; otherwise bad colours are the 

 effect. The bottom flowers on the spike only should be allowed to 

 produce seed, which is easily done by pinching the top ones off; and, 

 finally, the best seed is obtained where large quantities are grown, 

 and where the plants are allowed to remain where sown, and treated 

 as above stated. There are some who suppose, because a plant with 

 single flowers be surrounded by double ones, it must produce seed 

 from which nearly all the produce will be double ; but I need hardly 

 say that such is not the case, for the quantity of double flowers has 

 no effect upon the single, but merely indicates that the breed is a 

 good one. 



ADAMIA VERSICOLOE, 



jlOR. some time after the introduction of this plant, it 

 was generally complained of as being a shy bloomer, 

 and some persons still experience the same difficulty in 

 its culture. 

 It certainly cannot be considered a first-class plant, the 

 flowers not being high-coloured nor very showy ; but with proper 

 management it is a most profuse bloomer ; its hydrangea-like heads of 

 flowers being produced in succession for months, aud remain long 

 in perfection ; and when seen in the form of a well-grown specimen, 

 with every shoot terminated by a head of flowers, it is well deserv- 

 ing of a place in even select collections. Propagation is readily 

 effected by means of cuttings of the young wood in a rather firm 

 state. These should be selected as early in the season as they can 



