February 3, 1863. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



89 



soil, and a differently aged plant, with different degrees of 

 health and strength in the plants — to obtain the desired cross. 



Even should all attempts fail us, we may rest assured the 

 cross is obtainable in some other locality or country differing 

 from our own. 



Then, if that be true of G-eraniacese, and I can see no cause 

 to doubt it, there can hardly be a question about its not being an 

 isolated fact in one order of plants only ; although we cannot 

 discern it in those orders where the process of fecundation is 

 positive, or effected at one stage of the process. 



I said, long since, that the surest way to effect a difficult 

 cross in Geraniaceo3 was to subject the mother, previous to 

 attempting impregnation, to a sudden check, and that was 

 how I overcame the inertness of Scarlet Defiance, although I 

 failed for seven years even by that move ; but another move 

 seems to have been equally necessary. The plant, for the 

 eighteen months preceding the period of that seeding, was kept 

 at, or as near, the starvation-point as could be without killing 

 it ; the poorest sandy soil, and the smallest pot to crump the 

 roots in, with no more water than to lift the leaves after they all 

 flagged, was the treatment repeated through two summers. 



The fact is, that plant was a giant sport, and it was necessary 

 to reduce the giant to the level of its ordinary kindred before 

 it could seed by the pollen of any one of them ; and I have 

 found it necessary to reduce it considerably in strength before 

 1 could seed it by its own pollen, which makes me anxious to 

 learn if it has been found more easy to effect by any one else 

 whose soil and treatment might be very different from mine. 



I am supposed, by many, to know more about crossing than 

 many others, which obliges me to be so much the more parti- 

 cular about everything I have to say on the subject. But every 

 one of our readers who has a turn for crossing knows just ss 

 much about it as 1 do, for I know nothing of it which is not 

 down in these volumes, and some may know much more of it ; 

 for all the cross-breeders over the country have, each one, their 

 own peculiar breeds to work on, and, of course, every one knows 

 something, practically, which no one else can know so well for 

 the want of practice in that particular breed. One thing, how- 

 ever, we all know, and that is, how very little the best of us 

 really does know about it. Depend upon it, there are scores 

 who have never crossed twenty kinds of plants in all their prac- 

 tice, who can tell you twice as much about it as the most prac- 

 tical of us who have been at it all our gardening lifetime. 

 They can do every conceivable turn in it without going out of 

 doors ; we, very little indeed, even if we devote our whole time 

 to it. But the greatest difference between them and us is, that 

 they can account for every effect produced, which enables them 

 to foretel events in crossing ; while we cannot reach farther 

 than our experience places before our eyes. D. Beaton. 



ELOWEKS OF THE PAST SEASON". 



PANSIES. 



Many are the conjectures and terribly magnified pictures 

 which are presented to us from time to time, of the condition 

 in which this "tight little island" would be if the Gulf Stream 

 through any disturbing cause, were to be diverted from our 

 shores. And, by-the-by, may we not say, in passing, that this 

 is one of those things so Utile dreamt of by many, for which 

 we ought to take shame to ourselves that we are not sufficiently 

 thankful for those daily and unnoticed mercies which a gracious 

 Father is ever bestowing ? We have been enjoying a winter 

 mild beyond description— we, perhaps, think too mild. We 

 see our Roses pushing, buds of our Currants and Gooseberries 

 swelliug ; and, as is our wont, we shake our heads, and only 

 " wish we had a little sharp frost to keep things back," little 

 considering what a boon this has been to those poor distressed 

 souls in Lancashire, or to the large mass of still more destitute 

 creatures who, in our great metropolis, are exposed to a depth 

 of misery that Lancashire knows nothing of. 



Well, the Gulf Stream has not deserted us, and we are, I 

 hope, thankful. But what has that to do with Pansies ? .Nothing, 

 except in the way of "a circumbendibus." That stream has 

 deserted us in the south, and we are fain to look northwards 

 now i for the cultivation of this pretty spring flower ; nor do 

 I think that the position in which it is placed, or the manner in 

 which it is disparaged, is either at all fair, or at all likely to 

 advance its cultivation. 



I am quite as sanguine aa to the future of the Fancy Pansy 



as any one can be. I believe that Mr. Dean, of Bradford, is 

 likely to do wonders with it ; but I do not therefore see any 

 reason why the old love Bhould be east away. Then the Royal 

 Horticultural Society has thrown its weight into the adverse 

 Bcale by offering lower prizes for florists' Pansies than for Fancy 

 ones — prizes, indeed, so small in amount, as, I fear, not to 

 make it worth the while of any grower to send them. The 

 whole meaning of this is, that a few persons have taken it into 

 their wise heads that there is too great a sameness in Pansies ; 

 and that by the way of obtaining variety it is best to squelch them. 

 altogether. It is a somewhat novel doctrine ; but perhaps 

 people are becoming bo very wise now-a-days that they must be 

 drawn out of the old trammels. I grant (hat there is a great 

 deal of sameness, but so there is in every florists' flower. Look 

 at a collection of Tulips worth hundreds of pounds, or at one of 

 Fuchsias or Pelargoniums : it is surely just the same thing 

 there. The person who grows them can see variety. He will 

 pay his money for new flowers which he believes in some one 

 or more points to be better than others which he has, and his 

 opinion is scarcely worth more than that of a mere outsider. 

 Imagine the horror with which Sir Octavius Oldboy would 

 regard you if, after taking you through a room rich with the 

 plunder of Egyptian tombs, you were to say, " Dear me, Sir 

 Octavius! these are all very much alike!" And do you not 

 think, if you were merely a looker-on and knew nothing of the 

 real merit of these images of " Pasht " and other Egyptian 

 dealers, it would be rather more modest to hold your tongue ? 

 "Alike, sir ! As much alike as you are like a monkey ! Look here. 

 Do you see this one is of bronze and that of earthenware ? 

 Look at the size of this compared with that ; mark the peculiar 

 expression in these eyes ; and I can only tell you, sir, that if 

 you have any that you think like these, I can very soon show 

 you that there are differences which you cannot appreciate." 

 " Well done," says your companion, " I think you caught it 

 there ;" and probably the result is, you have learned a lesson 

 that may be of benefit to you through life. When any one, 

 then, runs down a box of flowers because of their sameness, 

 let him only have the owner standing by, and probably he will 

 learn a lesson that may in the same way teach him to be a little 

 more modest for the future. And, then, do the decisions of 

 Judges falsify this notion? There were, for instance, four or 

 five first-class certificates given to seedling Pinks this year. I 

 think they deserved it ; but I will undertake to place these in 

 a box of twenty-four, and that not one of those who are not 

 growers of Pinks shall be able to see the difference between 

 them and other varieties in the same stand, while a practised 

 eye will at once pick them out. So long, then, as amateurs are 

 satisfied that the new varieties of any florists' flowers are of suffi- 

 cient merit to warrant their purchasing them, and so long 

 as constituted courts of appeal, comprising the most compe- 

 tent persons to decide on such questions, continue to give 

 prizes and certificates to such new flowers, so long do I con- 

 sider it to be simply an absurdity for complaints to be made 

 of their sameness. 



I have thus attempted to vindicate the Pansy from this 

 charge, or at least to put it on the same ground as other florists' 

 flowers, and indeed we might say greenhouse and stove plants 

 as well — for where they are grown in collections the same charge 

 may also apply, as, for instance, Ferns. Take any one division 

 of these you like, and then see the minute points from which 

 growers will determine that a difference exists, and the distinc- 

 tions of the florist will not seem to be a bit more minute. 



One must now say a word on the present position of the 

 flower. Its admirers, are, I fear, becoming fewer than ever, the 

 difficulty of keeping them through the summer having deterred 

 florists from growing them. The last two summers have, how- 

 ever been favourable, and may, perhaps encourage others to 

 try them again. Be that as it may, it is to Scotland we now 

 look for new varieties — a fact most certainly more complimentary 

 to the perseverance of the Scottish growers than to the pro- 

 pitiousness of their climate ; for one almost wonders how they 

 can not only withstand but overcome the terrible foes of cold, 

 wet, and wind that they have to contend against. To one of 

 the several firms who are in the habit of raising and letting-out 

 new Pansies I am indebted for the opportunity of seeing a few 

 of the novelties of last year — I mean Messrs. Downie, Laird, 

 and Laing, of Edinburgh, and Stanstead Park Nursery, Forest 

 Hill ; and the following are the notes that I have been enabled to 

 make. I see that they are again advertising a batch of new 

 ones, amongst which a self named Masterpiece seems to bo pre- 



