A CATALOGUE OF VARIETIES 



AND 



SELECTIONS FOR VARIOUS PURPOSES 



To many this will be an interesting chapter. When 

 one resolves to begin the culture of any particular 

 class of flowers, one is immediately confronted with 

 the difficulty of making a selection of suitable varieties. 

 That such is a real difficulty few will doubt after 

 glancing over the following lists, which have been 

 carefully compiled from the 1902 catalogues of six of 

 the largest growers of Dahlias in this country. In 

 the Dahlia Register for 1836, and in The Dahlia, by 

 Robert Hogg, published in 1853, lists are given of 

 flowers then in cultivation ; but none of the varieties- 

 of 1836 or 1853 are now offered for sale, and none 

 of them were offered in 1897, when the first edition 

 of this book was published. What may be pointed 

 out now is the comparative stability of the list of 

 Show Dahlias. In the 1897 list 201 names were 

 given. All these appear in the following list except 

 one. But how different it is with the Cactus varieties. 

 In the 1897 edition a list of 179 varieties was pub- 

 lished 127 of these have now disappeared from the 

 catalogues of our principal growers, and only 52 

 varieties reappear in the present up-to-date list of 



56 



