January 6, 1863. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



be, made a summer flower to hold on to the end of September. 

 When it was only a spring flower it moulted, as it were, in June, 

 and lost all the white, and without the contrast of the white it 

 was no better than a blackbird after midsummer. Now, how- 

 ever, by dividing the plants late in April, instead of late in the 

 previous autumn, as,has been the usual custom, the growth of 

 the plant is continuous, and has no rest for moulting; so the 

 interesting contrast and the lovely tints of the Magpie Pansy 

 may be richly enjoyed to the very end of the flower-garden 

 season. The plants, then, are to be cut back and left as they 

 are the whole of the winter, and on to the last week in April. 

 Another lot might be cut back at the end of July, and be re- 

 planted or not a month later — say on a dripping day towards 

 the end of August, and such plants in a favourable spring would 

 be in bloom as the March Crocuses were going off. 



If I had known all this in time, and had, been aware the 

 Editors of the "Florist and Pomologist" contemplated a plate 

 of Pansies, I would have told them the story, and suggested to 

 them to have added a figure of the Magpie on that plate. But now 

 I have almost as pleasant a task— namely, to recommend every 

 one of my readers to be on the look-out for the Magpie Pansy, 

 if they have it not, and, to make their own plates full at home, 

 to order the four kinds of Pansies which are so well set off in 

 the plate in the " Florist and Pomologist." The names and 

 colours are at the aforesaid pago of this Journal (paere 790) ; but 

 as a good tale is not the worse for being twice told, I may just 

 say that I was present when a first-class certificate was awarded 

 to Mr. Dean for Princess Alice, the very largest and best of the 

 ■white-faced Pansies, with a deep purple centre. The next two, 

 Mrs. Moore and Leotard, I have not yet seen alive, but they are 

 extraordinary, particularly Mrs. Moore, which has the bottom and 

 two side petals deeply banded with the same crimson tint as 

 one sees now and then in some of the crimson Nosegays. The 

 ground colour is yellow, splendidly shaded with the feathered 

 deep purple blotches in the centre, and straw-eoloured back 

 petals edged like the new tricolor Variegated Geraniums ; and 

 Leotard is as a noble in court costume, the rest of the 

 dress being a rich shade of mauve, wilh the robe in Bishop's 

 purple, and the rest to match. The last figure on the plate 

 is the Double Purple, which has before been noticed in these 

 pages, and which the "Eloristand Pomologist" rightly says 

 " is not new, and was known many years ago ; but like manv 

 other hardy plants of great beauty, it has been neglected 

 because it did not happen to bask in the sunshine of popularity. 

 It is, however, a charming border plant, and should be in every 

 garden. Our sample for figuring was obtained from Messrs. 

 Carter & Co., who, we understand, have been successful in be- 

 coming possessed of this long-lost and ornamental variety, which 

 is likely now to be appreciated for its own merits, regardless of 

 the stringent rules of the florist." 



All this is from the heart and hands of the "Florist" itself, 

 Being another remarkable proof of what I have just stated about 

 the liberality of the florists of the present day. "Stringent 

 rules " are quite right and proper when volunteers are out on 

 parade, but sadly out of place when they are among the ladies 

 on gala days, when the stringent rules should all point to how to 

 please them the most. 



I will now tell you how this Pansy can be made more pleasing 

 Btill. I had that plant in my hands before any of the com- 

 mercial people had ever seen it, or, at least, I had cut flowers of 

 it from our office ; and it is the very plant for which I had the 

 first-class certificate from that flying quorum of the Floral Com- 

 mittee on that show day, when I was handing it about in 

 ecstacies at finding that every lady to whom I had shown it was 

 also "charmed" with it. And what will Mr. March, the author 

 of that charming book on drawing-room decoration, say when 

 he sees such additions for his tasteful designs as these, the Magpie 

 and Leotard Pansies ? The misfortune for me is, that my garden 

 is bo rich now that few Pansies can stand it without being 

 staked ; but I shall certainly place Leotard for its colour, and 

 Double Purple for its ladylike setting, side by side with my 

 most favourite Torenia-like Magpie Pansy, and I shall not cease 

 telling every move they make until the whole country is full of 

 their charms. 



The next entry in my day-book, is a promise I made last year 

 that I would tell how the double Chinese Primroses are made 

 into huge specimens hereabouts, and in no place more so than in 

 the Kingston Nursery. There is nothing about London which 

 can come near to them. Last week I measured the largest 

 plant &ere on purpose for this notice, and the diameter of the 



plant was within a fraction of being 1 yard across ; and there were 

 thirty-two crowns, or divisions, in that one plant, or, as one 

 might put it, thirty-two good cuttings could now be made from 

 that plant, without touching the spread of the branches as I may 

 call it. 



Now, then, let us take one of those thirty-two cuttings, and go 

 on with it for the next three years, and if we can do it as well as 

 they do them at Kingston, we shall not bs much short of a yard- 

 through plant by the end of the period. First of all— Bay the 

 very best propagating-bed that could be made, or IS inches 

 thick of the cocoa-nut refuse over an open, tank, or tank-bed, for 

 that is, without the smallest doubt, the very best way that has 

 yet been tried and proved, for it has been proved at the Royal 

 Gardens at Kew. When a body of the stuff is once warmed to 

 80" or £0°, it will keep to that degree for a very long period 

 with the ordinary care of keeping a greenhouse warm ; but over 

 a close tank, or over rubble and hot-water pipes, it is ten times 

 worae than useless, for I have proved that part of the play myself. 

 Once get the bottom of the cocoa-nut dust quite dry by the dry 

 heat from a pipe or flue, and you might just as well endeavour to 

 drive heat through a two-inch deal board. Charcoal itself is a 

 better conductor of heat than this stuff; but keep its own 

 natural moistness in it by the vapour from an open hot-water 

 tank, and there is no other substance will come near it in its 

 capacity for receiving heat and for retaining it the longest. All 

 that has been already perfectly proved. 



Suppose, then, such a propagating-bed, and such a cutting 

 from a double white or red Chinese Primula, and a thumb-pot 

 full of very sandy peat, with the usual covering of white Band 

 on the surface, not negle.ting a fair drainage, and the cutting put 

 in and watered on a fine morning in February. When the pot 

 has drained off the superfluous water and the cutting is dry 

 in the leaves, the pot is plunged in 85° bottom heat, and for the 

 next six weeks the heat is not one degree lower than at first, 

 and may be a little more at times. The bell-glass over the 

 cutting is twice as large as the thumb-pot would seem to 

 require, in order to allow twice the usual space over the 

 cutting, which makes it four times less liable to damp-off than 

 under a very tight fit. But ere the end of the six weeks there 

 are roots, and it is necessary to tilt the bell-glass a little from 

 sundown to breakfast-time next day, until at last the young 

 thing is able to stand upright of itself; and before the roots 

 get crowded in the cutting-pot the plant is shifted into a No. 

 60-pot, and a little leaf mould and loam are given with the sand 

 and peat. The pot is now plunged in another hotbed, but not 

 nearly so hot as the first ; and in a very short time the second 

 pot is full enough of roots to need another shift, and that is 

 into the next size, or No. 48-pot. More loom again, and leaf 

 mould, peat, and sand, and the pot and plant are now fit to 

 stand on a slielf across the cold end of a stove. By the time 

 No. 48 is squeezed into No. 32 the plant is fit for the green- 

 house, and we are at Midsummer-day. One more shift into a 

 No. 24-pot brings us on to the middle or end of August ; and 

 two-thirds of the compost are now the best maiden yellow loam, 

 and the one-third about equal quantities of leaf mould, peat, 

 and sand. From going into No. 24-pot, all through the winter 

 and next spring, give no more water than will keep the plant from 

 flagging, and as much heat only as to save from frost. Any time 

 late in the spring, or early in the summer, when all the roots, 

 seem to have got into fair working order, the plant is put into a 

 No. 2-pot — the biggest pot but one that is made in regular 

 casts, or just the one-shift system. In this No. 2-pot the plant 

 remains two yearB and gives two crops of flowers, and each crop, 

 is worth more money than the plant, and thi3 has been done 

 for years. D. Beaton. 



THE FLOWERS OF LAST SEASON. 



BEDDING GERANIUMS. 

 Some time since I gave a aort of running commentary on the 

 new Verbenas which had been ushered into public life during 

 the past season, the notes I made being from some in my own 

 garden with which I had been liberally supplied by the raisers.. 

 I now proceed to do the same with the bedding Pelargoniums — 

 or Geraniums, as I think they had much better have been 

 called, and as Mr. Beaton will call them. I could not, of course, 

 expeet to find that I coincided in opinion with others who had 

 similar opportunities of judging Verbenas, and never for once 

 meant to say more than what they were as far as my own 



