IN CALIFORNIA 151 



When transplanting to their final pots give good 

 drainage and use good soil and' well rotted manure. 

 For pots the best size is ten or twelve-inch, well 

 drained, and have the soil in a good friable condition. 

 Pot firmly by means of a stick, leaving about two 

 inches from the top of the pot to the soil for water- 

 ing and mulching. The plants should then be thor- 

 oughly watered and placed in a good position and 

 sprayed overhead for a few days, great care being 

 taken in watering till they get well established in the 

 pots. 



SORTS TO GROW 



There are so many named varieties of chrysanthe- 

 mums, all of which will make grand blooms if well 

 cared for, that it is impossible to give a list of the 

 better sorts. Excellence in flowers is more a matter 

 of care than of kind. 



CHRYSANTHEMUM HISTORY 



Marco Polo, the Venetian traveler who visited 

 China about the year 1300, mentions having seen 

 the chrysanthemum in that country, and it is be- 

 lieved to be native there, but not to Japan. To the 

 Chinese belongs the credit of raising it to the pres- 

 ent large size and to the Japanese of perfecting its 

 varied forms and colors. It reached Europe about 

 1450 and England about 1700. 



A chrysanthemum with small yellow flowers grew 

 in the Apothecaries' Botanical Garden at Chelsea in 

 England in 1764, but the first of the large-flowered 

 varieties was received at the Royal Gardens at Kew 

 and blossomed in 1764. It is from the latter that the 

 centennial introduction of the flower into England 

 dates. The first English seedlings of the chrysan- 

 themum were raised in 1835; the first chrysanthe- 

 mum exhibition in England was held in 1843 at 



