92 THE TUBEROCJS BEGONIA. 



mature plant may be painfully apparent next season. Also, when it is desired 

 to save seed from plants in the early stage of flowering, and particularly where 

 a specially choice sample of seed is required, it will also be well to set only 

 one, two, or at most three pods on a single plant, and the last number only 

 on a very strong example. 



"Where a dry heat cannot be applied, or, indeed, under unfavourable con- 

 ditions of any kind, it is advisable to get the blooms fertilised and the pods 

 " set," as far as possible, during the month of July or early in August, 

 when they will take freely, ripen without trouble, and probably be fit to 

 harvest some time in August or September. At the time of fertilising tha 

 blooms, and while the pods are swelling and ripening, it is advisable to keep 

 the atmosphere of the house as dry (in reason) as will agree with the health 

 of the other inmates, particularly should the prevailing weather be cold and 

 damp ; and, also, to be rather more sparing in the supply of water at the root 

 than usual. A gentle warmth in the pipes is also of great use, drying the 

 air and promoting evaporation and a healthy movement in the atmosphere ; 

 and an open stage is often more suitable than a .close one. 



NATURAL FERTILISATION. 



BEGONIAS, both single and double, but more frequently the former, will 

 often set and mature seed-pods without any artificial fertilisation whatever, 

 though it is probable that this takes place unnoticed by the pollen being 

 carried in the air, or in some cases by insects, from one flower to another. 

 But this naturally fertilised seed, ov such as has been inoculated by chance, is 

 comparatively worthless, or, at any rate, cannot be depended upon, even 

 though the parent blooms were of good quality. At the same time, it is quite 

 possible for a really good cross to be effected in this hap-hazard fashion, and 

 it occasionally happens that very valuable seedlings are obtained by chance 

 in this way. In appears to be an invariable rule that commoner varieties or 

 indifferent flowers are fertilised and produce *seed much more readily than 

 those that are more highly bmd ; and the finer the flowers are, the more shy 

 do they become of seed -bearing. Indeed, in a large collection of the very 

 finest varieties we have known scarcely a single seed-pod to be produced except 

 those that had been carefully fertilised by hand. But undoubtedly thorough 

 artificial inoculation is the only true scientific and certain mode of ejecting 

 the desired object, and in this way only should the cultivator attempt to 

 obtain seed. 



ARTIFICIAL FERTILISATION. 



THE modus operandi is not always identical, some growers preferring to 

 employ a camel-hair brush to effect the transfer of pollen ; and where great 

 exactness is not required, as in the production of ordinary good mixed seed 

 in quantity, it is usual to work indiscriminately by this means among any 



