Zo2 GARDEN MANAGEMENT 



prices so long as they are known to be confined to one or two individual 

 plants ; and in our own day we have seen a Fanny Kemble and Polyphemus 

 sold at the rate of 100 guineas for four or five bulbs. 



1656. Florists' Flowers, as we see them in their present state of culti- 

 vation, prove how immense is the field which Natu're lays open to reward the 

 industry and intelligence of man. Who can place the different flowers which 

 have passed under the florist's hand for cultivation side by side with their will 

 originals without being struck with wonder at the almost marvellou-i results 

 which follow from the ingrafting of nature and art ? Compare the pansies of 

 some of our recent prize-shows with the wild heartsease of the woods, and it 

 is hardly possible to realize the idea that the two stand to each other in 

 any sort of genealogical relationship ; and the same is true of pinks, and 

 hyacinths, and anemones. Nor, indeed, is the contrast yet at its height, for 

 every year fresh progress is being made in symmetry, in richness and variety 

 of colouring, or in size. Look at the dahlias and chrj^santhemums of the 

 present day, and think what were considered good flowers, and actually called 

 forth admiration, some twenty years ago. The different varieties which come 

 tinder the head of florists' flowers are so rich in beauty that most persons take 

 delight in them. Indeed it is quite impossible for a garden to be really gay 

 without its share of them, and with them any garden may be gay at all 

 seasons, except in the depth of winter. Even now, as we write for the 

 autumn months of the year, though tulips, and carnations, and auriculas, and 

 ranunculus, and hyacinths, &c. &c., are at rest, chrysanthemums and dahlias 

 are in their glory ; and these will continue to enliven our gardens till an 

 envying frost cuts them off. At all seasons of the year there is something to 

 be done with florists' flowei-s. Let us take the chief varieties in order, and see 

 what autumn care and culture are required by them. 



i657' Tulips. — There is a peculiarity belonging to tulips which does not, so 

 far as we are aware, belong to any other flower. The seedlings, in their 

 first bloom, generally produce flowers without any stripes or markings, all the 

 upright portions of the petal being self-coloured, flowez-ing for years without 

 any such variegations, when they are called breeders. After some years they 

 break out into stripes : if these are liked, they are named ; but they have multi- 

 plied in the breeder state, and may have been distributed in all directions, each 

 person possessed of one which has broken using the i^rivilege of naming it ; 

 hence many, with different synonymes, are one and the same thing. It is 

 another peculiarity that of twenty of a sort in the same bed, scarcely two may 

 come up alike, although good judges can recognize them. These particularities 

 interfere with their cultivation, and, as Mr. Glenny surmises, may be one of the 

 charms of tulip-cultivation. 



1658. The perfection of soil for tulip-culture would be three inches of the 

 top of a rich loamy pasture, the turf of which, cleared of wire- worm, grub, and 

 insect, has lain by till thoroughly rotted, and which has been repeatedly 

 turned and picked : the decayed vegetable matter will suffice without other 

 ^■essing. The tulip-bed should run north and south, with drainage perfect. 



