THE FAKMEKS' REGISTEK 



103 



lions necessary for the perlecl production of either | 

 the one or the other are elaborated. Of this lact, 

 the first produce ol' the blacli eagle cherry tree 

 aHorded a striking example, A part of it was 

 sent, with other cherries, to the Horticulturul 

 Society ; and it was then, in the Iruit cominiitee; 

 pronounced good lor nothing. It was so bad, that 

 Mr. Knight, who raised ii, would most certainly 

 have taken oft' the head of the tree and employed 

 its stem as a stock, but that it had been called the 

 property of one of his children, who sowed the 

 seed which produced it, and who lielt very anxious 

 lor its preservation. It has now become one ol 

 the richest and finest liuits ol its species which we 

 possess. 



It may be expected that some mention should 

 here be made ol' double flowers, and of the man- 

 ner in which they are to be obiained. But 1 

 confess myself unable to discover, either in the 

 writings of physiologists, or in the experience ol 

 gardeners, or in the nature of plants themselves, 

 any sufficient clue to an explanation of the causes 

 lo v/hich their origin may be ascribed. There 

 are, however, several facts apparently coiuiected 

 with the subject, which deserve mention. 



A double flower, properly so called,* is one in 

 which the natural production of stamens or pisiils 

 is exchanged lor petals, or in which the number ol 

 the latter is augmented without any disturbance ol 

 the Ibrmer ; in other words, it is a case of the loss, 

 on the part of a plant, of the power necessary to 

 develope its leaves in the state of sexual organs. 

 But what causes that loss of power we do not 

 know. It can hardly be a want of suffici- 

 ent Ibod in the soil ; lor double flowers (the 

 Narcissus, for instance) become single in very 

 poor soil. On the other hand, it can scarcely be 

 excessive vigor ; for no one has ever yet obtained 

 a double flower by prom.otmg the health or energy 

 of a species. VVhen plants are excessively 

 stimulated by unusually warm damp weather at 

 the period of flowering, their flowers in such cases 

 sometimes became monstrous : but the effect of 

 this is to lengthen their axis of growth, and to 

 form true leaves instead of floral organs, just the 

 reverse of what occurs in a truly double flow- 

 er; the varieties of rosa Gallica often exhi- 

 bit this kind of change. In damp cloudy sum- 

 mers, some flowers assume the appearance 

 of being double, by the change of their sexual 

 organs into small green leaves, as occurred very 

 generally to Poleuiilla nepalensis in the summer 

 of 1839, but there was, at the same time, scarce- 

 ly a trace of any tendency, on the part of those 

 leaves, to assume the color or texture of 

 petals. 



There is, evidently, a greater tendency in some 

 flowers to become double than in others, and espe- 

 cially in those having great numbers of stamens 

 or pistils. All our lavoiite double flowers, hepati- 

 cas, paionies, camellias, anemones, roses, cherries, 

 plums, ranunculuses, belong to this class ; and, in 

 proportion as the natural number of stamens 

 diminishes, so do both the disposition to become 

 double, and the beauty of the flowers when alter- 

 ed. The pink and carnation with ten stamens 



* 'What is called a double dahlia is misnamed ; and 

 so are all so-called double composite flowers. The 

 appearance of doubling is caused in these plants by a 

 mere alteration of the florets of their disk into the 

 lorm of florets ot the rav ; a very different thing from 

 double flowers. 



are the handsomest race next to those just men- 

 tioned ; while the hyacinth, the tulip, ihe siock, 

 and the wallflower vviih six stamens, and ihc auri- 

 cula and polyanthus with five, lorm altogether an 

 inferior ruce, il syumietry of lonn, and regularity 

 of arrangement in the parts of ihe flower, are 

 regaided as beauiies of the highest order. If the 

 mere circumstance ol a plant having but a small 

 number of stamens be a bar to its beauty when 

 made double, how much greater an obstacle lo it 

 muse be the natural production of unsymmetrical 

 flowers. This occurs in the snap-dragon, which, 

 with a flve-lobed corolla, has but lour stamens ; 

 and the consequence is, thai, when it becomes 

 double, the flower is a confused crowd ol crum- 

 pled petals issuing Irom the original corolla. 



I have heard of attempts lo produce double 

 flowers by artificial processes, but 1 never heard ol" 

 the smallest success attending such cases, unless 

 the tendency to their production had already 

 manifested itself naturally ; as in the stock, which 

 will frequently become single from having been 

 double, in which case its original double character 

 may be recovered. A mode of eflecting this has 

 been described by Mr. James Munro (Gr'flrci. 

 Mag., xiv. 121). Having a number of single 

 scarlet ten-week stocks, he deprived them of all 

 their flowers as soon as he Ibund that five or six 

 seed-vessels were formed upon each spike, by 

 which means he compelled all the nutritive matter 

 that would have been expended upon the whole 

 flower-spike and its numerous seed-vessels to be 

 concentrated in the small number which he lelt ; 

 and the result, he says, was, that Irora the seed 

 thus saved he had more than 400 double stocks in 

 one small bed. 



There can, I think, be no doubt that, if any 

 original change to a double flower can possibly be 

 efliected by art, it will be more likely to occur with 

 respect to those species which have an indefinite 

 number of stamens, where the tendency to this 

 monstrosity already exists. It is not many years 

 since the chryseis (Eschscholtzia) Calilbrnica, a 

 polyandrous plant, was introduced to our gar- 

 dens ; and 1, at one time, made some attempts to 

 render it double, conceiving it a good subject for 

 experiment on that account, but I had no success ; 

 it has, however, accidentally become serai-double 

 in Mrs. Marryat's garden, at Wimbledon ; and 

 I entertain no doubt that seed skilfully saved Irom 

 that plant would present its flowers in a still more 

 double condition. 



CLOVER AND TIMOTHY — MANURE. 



From the Union (111.) Agriculturist. 



* * * Whilst writing permit me to 

 say, that my experience in raising grass (hav- 

 ing cultivated as much as any in^ihis county) 

 amounts to this — clover and timothy mixed 

 will yield one third more hay in lbs. than timothy 

 alone, and more than clover alone, and will stand 

 a drought much better. 



Further — Land that is well manured produces 

 double the crop of that which is not. I have 

 tested it in the same field. Rushville prairie ap- 

 pears as rich as any land I have seen in the state, 

 yet one load of manure will do as much good as 

 on any land I have ever noticed, however 

 poor. Yours, J. D. Man love. 



Rushville, JJec. 21, 18-11. 



