General Notices. 229 



ed, until they are put into six or eight inch pots, where they will flower as 

 well, and often better, than those obtained at a high price fiom the dealers. 

 Where the grower does not intend competing at exhibitions, but simply 

 requires his plants for the decoration of his garden, I would advise him to 

 adopt this plan, whereby he will be supplied with little more cost than his 

 trouble ; and this would be comparatively nothing if we take into account 

 the number of plants he could have for tlie price of the very cheapest plants 

 he could buy. Besides, he would be likely to obtain far better flowers. 

 Any person who has been in the hhbit of raising seedlings, knows what an 

 amount of pleasure he has experienced on seeing a beautiful child of his 

 own, if I'may use the expression, showing its face for the first time. I am 

 sure that any person trying this plan will have a hundred flowers out of one 

 packet of seed, as good as the one flower he could have bought at the same 

 price. And, whenever the flowers show themselves to be unworthy of 

 room in the inside, there will always be a place outside, in which any thing 

 in flower will look better than a blank, or a plant out of flower. Where 

 there is not much room for w-intering them, none but the very best need be 

 kept ; the rest, having ripened their seed, may be turned out ; and the pots 

 may be used for some of the plants in the flower-garden before the frosts 

 set in. There is no plant I know that is so easily crossed as the calceola- 

 ria, for the herbaceous and the shrubby kinds cross as readily together as 

 any of the shrubby or herbaceous ones taken by themselves. The way I 

 generally do, when I have decided on what two flowers I wish to cross, is 

 thus : — With a knife I scrape the pollen froin the anther of the one, and 

 apply it to the stigma of the other with the same instrument, taking care to 

 have the anthers removed before they burst. Where there is to be more 

 than one cross effected upon one plant, there will be something needed to 

 show which flowers are crossed with this or that variety. The best and 

 most simple method is to use diflJerent colors of thread, tying a distinct color 

 to each flower, and keeping a'note of the cross in a book ; by this means, 

 ■when the seed is ripe, it is easy to know from what flowers it was obtained. 

 I recollect, some years ago, just at the beginning of the calceolaria mania, 

 to have been in the house of a great grower, and his flowers were marked 

 with thread of different colors ; and I believe he reaped the benefit of his 

 colors, for he raised some of the best flowers that appeared for some time 

 after that, and got great prices for them. But every thing of that kind has 

 its day, and I believe he has now no better flowers than his neighbors. — 

 {United Gardeners'' Journal, 1817, pp. 97, 98.) 



The Cuhivalion of the Dahlia. — The following remarks on the manage- 

 ment of this fine autumnal flower, are from a Descriptive Catalogue recent- 

 ly sent us by the author, Mr. Charles Turner, of Chalvey, near Windsor, 

 one of the most successful cultivators around London. Mr. Turner was 

 formerly with Mr. Brown, of Slough, well known not only for the superior 

 specimens of blooms which he has repeatedly exhibited, and taken the highest 

 prizes, but for the production of many of the finest varieties which have 

 been raised. We therefore make no apology for the length of his observa- 

 VOL. XIII. — NO, V. 22 



