Cultivation of the Pelargonium. 35 



amateurs too often, with little time to devote to their gardens, 

 and unwilling to incur great expense, grasp at too much, and 

 too frequently have but little to show either creditable to 

 themselves, or gratifying to their friends. 



Last year, Mr. Beck raised about 3.000 seedlings, out of 

 which he has kept, for a second year's trial, from twenty to 

 thirty plants. Of every plant he keeps for trying a second 

 season, he saves only two or three cuttings which he contin- 

 ues to grow ; and these, when their merits are fully proved at 

 the exhibitions of the second season, are propagated for a stock. 

 Mr. Dobson, he informs us, has his stock "in wonderful con- 

 dition, both seedlings, yearlings, and two years' old. The 

 latter I am particularly interested in, because there are some 

 entirely novel points in their characters." Another season, it 

 is his intention to publish an illustrated catalogue, which shall 

 exhibit the true characters of the flowers, the faults as well as 

 the merits. 



Mr. Beck is, strictly speaking, an amateur cultivator, but 

 the fame of his seedlings spread far and wide, and there were 

 so many applicants for his plants that he was induced to offer 

 them for sale ; and to such an extent has the demand been, 

 that the past season, his orders exceeded in value three hun- 

 dred poimds sterling, for young plants to be delivered in Octo- 

 ber. No better test is needed to show the great merit of his 

 seedlings. 



Pelargoniums, like many other plants of easy and rapid 

 growth, which every body thinks there is no art in cultivat- 

 ing, are too frequently seen in any thing but the real condi- 

 tion in which skilful and judicious treatment will bring 

 them ; and the errors also lie as much in cultivating too highly 

 as in not cultivating at all. The very large plants which 

 are often exhibited, and which now continue to form highly 

 attractive objects at the Horticultural Exhibitions, may be, 

 and undoubtedly are, fine specimens of what art may accom- 

 plish, so far as growth, form of the plant and abundance of bloom 

 are concerned ; but the quality of the flowers is generally — we 

 might say always — sacrificed to the luxuriant growth of such 

 huge specimens. Witness what Mr. Beck writes us on this 

 head : — 



" Let me, while on the subject of these plants, remark, that, 



