the still more beautiful Cheltoni, and the latest addition 

 to the numerous "sports" is a pure white counterpart 

 of that fine early pink Chrysanthemum, Mrs. Coombes. 



The underlying causes of '"sports" are not easy to 

 explain; they are freaks of nature and of welcome 

 appearance when, as often happens, they give us the 

 counterpart of a grand Chrysanthemum in another 

 color; something that years of hybridizing and raising 

 from seed with the* same object in view may fail of 

 accomplishment. It is curious, too, that a variety will 

 often remain true to itself for several years, then, 

 suddenly, and sometimes simultaneously in widely re- 

 mote places, will develop sporting proclivities with 

 exactly similar results; a sport identically alike in all 

 respects having been known to appear in three or four 

 separate places the same year. In order to "fix" a 

 "sport" by which is meant obtaining plants that will 

 perpetuate the flower recourse must be had to propa- 

 gation. 



If the plant that "sported" has been grown to a 

 single stem, bearing only one flower, in all probability 

 the usual young shoots that spring up from the base 

 of the same plant will partake of the same character, 

 but on the other hand there is no certainty that they 

 will, as reversion to the parent type the following year 

 is by no means uncommon. A case in point occurred 

 last season. The pink Chrysanthemum, Mrs. Barclay, 

 in England, produced a "sport" that was almost white ; 

 a distinct and very beautiful flower. Young plants of 

 it were quite generally distributed, purchased by other 

 growers in the spring of 1904, but when they flowered 

 the following autumn all produced pink flowers had, in 

 fact, reverted to the parent Mrs. Barclay. In most 

 cases, however, a "sport" is easily fixed, especially if 



