Gardening for Amateurs 



353 



to Miss Willmott. I am exceedingly fond 

 of Amy Robsart ; the blossom is lovely, large 

 and pure white, and she is very tall, attain- 

 ing 3 feet 6 inches in length of stem. Sir 

 Galahad, a well-shaped rosette in form, and 

 sweetly perfumed, has one bad fault, the 

 neck is weak, so the blooms hang down. 

 The leading growers of Carnations aim at 

 producing a stiff-necked generation, which 

 hardly needs staking. Bookham White is 

 a flower which nearly approaches this ideal. 

 It has received a first class certificate from 

 the Royal Horticultural Society, and its 

 huge blossoms and stalwart bearing stamp it 

 as a most welcome novelty. Furthest North 

 is a really magnificent 

 Carnation, which I 

 believe many people 

 consider the finest 

 white in existence. 

 The old variety, Mrs. 

 Eric Hambro, has 

 lovely blossoms which 

 have won prizes at 

 shows, but it was 

 never suitable for 

 border cultivation, and 

 is now surpassed, both 

 for exhibition and for 

 border, by newer 

 varieties. 



Yellow Selfs.-! 

 eeem to stand alone 

 in considering Daffodil 

 good for border culti- 

 vation ; but I can only 

 speak as I find. It 

 certainly lives in the 

 open border all the 

 year round, very con- 

 tentedly, in my gar- 

 den. But there can 

 be no two opinions as 

 to the supremacy of 

 Daffodil as an ex- 

 it i bit ion Carnation ; in 

 form and colour no 

 other yellow Self can 

 compare with it. I 

 understand that efforts 

 have been made at 

 Edensido to produce 

 a Carnation as perfect 

 23 



in colour and form as Daffodil, but stronger 

 in habit of growth. Mr. Douglas tells me that 

 he raised thousands of seedlings with Daffodil 

 and Ann Hathaway as parents, and sat down 

 with great hope to see the result. The first 

 to bloom was a purple Self ; the next fifty 

 were yellow ground Picotees and Fancies. 

 When all had bloomed, it was thought at 

 first that one yellow Self had been produced ; 

 but, alas ! a careful examination revealed 

 that the supposed Self had a splash of Rose 

 on the petals. Hard is the path of the 

 hybridiser ! However, Mr. Douglas has 

 found two colours which produce yellow 

 Selfs with some degree of certainty, and he 



Carnation Mrs. Henwood, a charming white variety. 



