APPENDIX. 493 
M. Chaté’s method, which he calls the French one, gives still greater 
results, viz.: 80 per cent. of double flowers, and these produced by very 
simple means. “When my seeds,” he observes, “have been chosen 
with care, I plant them, in the month of April, in good dry mould, in a 
position exposed to the morning sun, this position being the most 
favourable. At the time of flowering I nip off some of the flowering 
branches, and leave only ten or twelve pods on the secondary branches, 
taking care to remove all the small weak branches which shoot at 
this time. I leave none but the principal and the secondary branches 
to bear the pods. All the sap is employed in nourishing the seeds 
thus borne, which give a result of 80 per cent. of double flowers. The 
pods under this management are thicker, and their maturation is more 
perfect. At the time of extracting the seeds the upper portion of the 
pod is separated and placed aside, because it has been ascertained that 
the plants coming from the seeds situated in this portion of the pod, 
give 80 per cent. of single flowers. They yield, however, greater 
variety than the others. This plan of suppressing that part of the 
pod which yields single flowers in the largest proportion, greatly 
facilitates the recognition of the single-flowered plants, because there 
remains to be eliminated from among the seedlings only from 10 to 15 
per cent. 
This separation of the single from the double-flowered plants, M. 
Chaté tells us is not so difficult as might be supposed. The single 
stocks, he explains, have deep green leaves (glabrous in certain species), 
rounded at the top, the heart being in the form of a shuttlecock, and 
the plant stout and thickset in its general aspect, while the plants 
yielding double flowers have very long leaves of a light green colour, 
hairy, and curled at the edges, the heart consisting of whitish leaves, 
curved so that they enclose it completely. Such is the substance of M. 
Chaté’s method of securing so large a proportion of double-flowered 
plants, and then of separating them from the remaining single ones— 
a method which commends itself to the good sense of the intelligent 
cultivator.”' 
Signor Rigamonti, a great cultivator of pinks, asserted that he was 
able to distinguish double from single-flowered pinks, in the seedling 
state. According to this gentleman, those seedlings which produce 
three cotyledons in a whorl in place of two, form double flowers. 
In the case of Primula sinensis the same results occurred. Some had 
three leaves in a ring, others two; most had the leaves standing one 
over the other as usual. These were divided into three sets, and when 
they flowered, the first lot were all double, the second semi-double, the 
third single. But these statements have not been confirmed by other 
observers; and the writer can safely assert that seedling pinks occa- 

‘ Leading Article in the ‘Gardeners’ Chronicle,’ p. 74, 1866. 
