STOCK 265 



twelve or fifteen inches will not be too much for the medium and 

 tall kinds. 



Slugs may be kept off by a dusting of soot or wood ashes, and 

 some precaution must also be adopted to prevent birds from dis- 

 turbing the seed-bed. 



On a heavy soil, it is next to useless to sow in the open, but with 

 a little management it will still be possible to grow good Stocks by 

 transplanting. Make a small hot-bed about the first week in April. 

 Let it settle down for a week, then cover with four to six inches of 

 the best soil at command. Upon this, draw drills, six inches apart 

 and an inch deep. Sow in these drills, and cover the seed with fine 

 soil. Water the whole bed gently, but thoroughly, with a fine rose. 

 Half a brick at each corner will support a common hurdle, covered 

 with a mat to protect from inclement weather, either by night or day. 

 But do not keep this, or any other means of protection that may be 

 substituted for it, upon the bed for an unnecessary hour, for Stocks 

 should be grown as nearly hardy as possible. Before the plants are 

 ready for transferring to blooming quarters, an attempt should be 

 made to reduce a stiff soil to a friable state. Where the plants are 

 to stand, cut small trenches, and fill them with any light soil enriched 

 with decayed manure. In these rows the Stocks will thrive, and 

 yield an ample return for the little trouble bestowed in raising them. 

 A few plants potted separately will be certain to prove useful in 

 filling up blanks caused by failure. 



It may be well to mention a fact here which is not always 

 remembered, although the knowledge of it is generally assumed. 

 Seed can only be saved from single flowers, but those who have 

 made a study of the business find little difficulty in selecting plants, 

 and treating them in such a manner that seed obtained from them 

 will produce a large percentage of double blossoms in the following 

 generation. The experience of the most skilled growers has not, 

 however, yet enabled them to save seed which will result entirely in 

 double-flowering plants ; and perhaps this circumstance is scarcely to 

 be regretted, for should the time ever arrive when there are no single 

 Stocks, .there will be an end to this valuable class of annuals. In 

 keeping the various colours true, there is one very awkward fact. 

 Certain sorts invariably produce a difference in colour between the 

 double and single flowers. This is clearly illustrated in the sulphur- 

 yellow varieties, in which the single flowers always come white. Hence 

 in saving seed, it is impossible so to select the plants that an occasional 

 white does not also appear among the double blossoms 



