188 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



from seed of the fine white pompon variet}', White Aster, I had' 

 flowers of every sort and kind and every shade of color, — single^ 

 pompon, and large doubles, some of the latter pretty good and 

 some poor enough to be offered as first rate " cactus" dahlias. 



We seem to be advancing from the single flowers over precisely 

 the same ground formerly traversed, for most of the "cactus" 

 varieties of the present day are in no respect different from varie- 

 ties figured fifty 3'ears ago in the " Floricultural Cabinet " and other 

 publications. I looked at a plant over a stranger's garden fence 

 last summer, trying to decide whether it was the much lauded 

 Henry Patrick or a poorly grown specimen of some worn-out 

 variety ; I could not settle the point. 



Into what will these loose flat petalled varieties develop? 

 Will they become the round, perfect, show dahlias as they did 

 before, or will they take a different turn and produce some new 

 form? It seems to me that the same materials — the species 

 variabilis, coccinea and gracilis — must produce the same results. 

 Within a year or two Merckii (glabrata of some) has been crossed 

 with some of the old sorts and the offspring have been bushy 

 little plants not more than eighteen inches high, and with large 

 single flowers which, however, are just like what we have now. 



In so large a family as the Compositse, to which the dahlia 

 belongs, it seems probable that some genus exists with which 

 h3'brids ma\' be formed, and it is from such a source that new 

 kinds are to be had if at all. A correspondent has lately sent to 

 the " Gardener's Chronicle" what he states to be the offspring of a 

 dahlia and a perennial sunflower. The learned editor declares 

 that he sees nothing of the sunflower about it, but admits that he 

 cannot say that such a cross is impossible, — an admission that 

 botany has learned something from horticulture, for thirty years 

 ago the idea of a bi-generic hybrid would have met nothing but 

 derision. 



There is still one point in which the present race of dahlias 

 ma}' be improved, — I mean hardiness. We frequentl}- have a 

 frost in the first part of September which kills all our dahlias \ 

 then succeed several weeks of bright mild weather in which our 

 blackened plants present but a sorry figure. If we could infuse 

 enough hardiness into them to enable them to withstand this first 

 frost, it would be a great point gained. Two years ago among 

 some hundreds of seedlings which the frost had destroyed, one 



