Sports and Other Variations. 79 



flowers, that many sports appear. On the other hand, if 

 grown in their natural bush form, sports appear any and 

 everywhere. 



Mr. Burbridge, in his excellent work on chrysanthemums, 

 says in regard to sports, that the causes of their appear- 

 ance are unintelligible to him. 



EARLY FLOWERING CHRYSANTHEMUMS seem out of place, 

 when in bloom in mid-summer, and we do not want them 

 so early, for it must be a poor collection of summer flowers 

 that can need the unseasonable help of the chrysanthemum at 

 any time from the first of March to the first of September ; 

 but after that date every bloom that can be secured for a 

 period of four or five months seems invaluable. There are 

 numerous varieties that will keep the southern garden or the 

 northern conservatory gay through November and December. 

 There are also some varieties that bloom in January, and 

 most of the medium and late flowering sorts can be induced 

 to bloom later by a system which we shall presently suggest. 



It is to the earlier flowering that we now confine our 

 remarks. This class is of great use in adorning northern gar- 

 dens where late kinds would be destroyed by frosts, filling up 

 the gap between the summer flowers and the November chrys- 

 anthemum. They are also invaluable to florists for cut-flower 

 work through October. John Salter was the first to take this 

 class in hand and develop it, as up to his time the early kinds 

 were all of little merit, and calculated to disfigure rather than 

 to adorn a garden. The varieties that were most valued by 

 Mr. Salter for their early blooming qualities, were Precocite, 

 Golden Button, St. Mary, Mad. Pepin and Illustration. 

 Some of these are still in cultivation, but are not of sufficient 

 value to command general admiration. For the last thirty 

 years this class has steadily improved, with the result of a 

 series of beautiful varieties flowering in September and Octo- 

 ber ; so that the introduction of this group is proving more 



