148 



JOUENAL OF HOBTICULTUBE AND COTTAGE GAEDENEB. 



[ August 25, 1870. 



the foliage is only a secondary consideration, though it must 

 be always borne in mind that coarse large leaves, or straggling 

 footstalks to the leaves, are a great drawback to the merit of 

 a Geranium, however good the flowers may be. 



It is_ difficult to classify Geraniums now by their colours, as 

 there is almost every gradation of shade in reds, from a dark 

 crimson to an orange scarlet, and so on ; but I will endeavour 

 to take the different colours in order as nearly as I can, begin- 

 ning with the crimsons and crimson scarlets. 



Of these, the best two with me have been Waltham Seedling 

 and Bayard. The first is a trifle the darker, and the latter the 

 brighter ; they are quite distinct in habit, and ought both to 

 be grown. Bayard, now that I have given it a season's trial, 

 is certainly the best crimson scarlet I have grown in beds, and 

 I must confess myself mistaken as to the size of the truss, 

 which in some notes I sent you in the spring I Baid I thought 

 would not be so large as Waltham Seedling, but it is, on the 

 contrary, larger. It is very free-blooming, and the trusses 

 last well ; its only fault is that the stalks are hardly strong 

 enough for the heads and fall about, and in this respect 

 Waltham Seedling is better, as the flower stalks are short and 

 stiff, and show every head. Good as Bayard is, Mr. Pearson 

 has better varieties in store, which he has not yet sent out, 

 especially some seedlings of this year, which I have twice care- 

 fully looked over, and of which I will send some notes at a 

 future time. I think, also, Douglas Pearson, Thomas Speed, 

 Duke of Devonshire, William Thomson, and some others he 

 3ent out this spring, are quite as good, if not better. 



Other crimsons I have tried this year have been International, 

 Eclat, Lord Palmerston, and Le Grand. International does 

 not flower freely enough. Eclat, though it has a very fine truss, 

 is too long in the flower stalk, and too coarse in the foliage. Le 

 Grand is at times very good, but the flowers do not stand sun 

 well, and it runs to seed. A very promising variety which I 

 had in a trial bed is Stanstead Eival (Downie, Laird, & Laing) ; 

 it is a brighter and lighter-coloured crimson than those before 

 mentioned, a very fine truss, and free-blooming. 



Two other very good sorts of dark crimson I have not grown 

 myself, but seen elsewhere, are Vesta and Glory of Waltham. 

 The first was highly spoken of at Chiswick last year, and I 

 have seen it very good this ; very dwarf and compact. The 

 latter I saw very good at Studley Boyal (Earl de Grey and 

 Bipon's), under the care of Mr. Clark, the rich dark green of 

 the foliage harmonising very well with the colour of the flower. 

 Lord Palmerston is so well known I need not make any re- 

 marks on it. It is an old favourite, and I do not like to dis- 

 card it ; it is exceedingly good as a late bloomer. It is, how- 

 ever, far surpassed by Duchess of Sutherland, though they are 

 not of exactly the same shade of colour, as Duchess of Suther- 

 land is brighter, and it is a first-class dry-weather plant. It has 

 been in full beauty now with me ever since I came back (21st of 

 June), and is as full of fresh flower stems now as ever. Some- 

 thing of the same shade of colour is Lady Kirkland, another 

 of Messrs. Downie, Laird, & Laiug's seedlings, and which was 

 kmdly sent me on trial by Mr. Charles Turner. It has the 

 largest head of bloom I have almost ever seen on a Nosegay 

 Geranium. 



I will take the scarlet and orange scarlet sections next, as 

 Cybister, Lady C. Grosvenor, Multiflora, Grand Duke, William 

 Underwood, and Eival. 



Cybister has again been very good, but rather too leggy in 

 habit ; it, however, does not run to seed in dry weather. Lady 

 Constance Grosvenor has been far better with me this year 

 than last, and has bloomed much more freely ; the colour is 

 undeniably good, brighter than Cybister, and the habit more 

 dwarf and spreading ; its only fault is that the flower stalks 

 are not strong enough for the truss, and it is, consequently, 

 much better in dry weather than wet. Multiflora has not been 

 so good as I expected ; it has, however, a very nice dwarf habit, 

 but the flower trusses are not large enough individually, though 

 they are very freely produced; but it is of a very rich colour, 

 and the individual blooms are large. Grand Duke is an orange 

 scarlet, with an immense truss, good footstalk, and vigorous 

 habit ; of the same sort of growth as Le Grand, but a freer 

 bloomer, and would be a splendid sort for a large bed or a 

 ribbon border. It might be coarse in wet weather, but is cer- 

 tainly very good in dry. 



William Underwood is the best red Zonal with me, but like 

 all of the Zonals I have ever tried, it does not branch freely. 

 I am gradually discarding all the Zonals (as I said in the 

 spring), for this reason. I have tried a great many, as Clipper, 

 Dr. Lindley, Herald of Spring, Miss Martin, &c, and always 



find, that though by pinching-in closely in the spring, and 

 putting them out as bushy plants, they make good beds at first, 

 yet unless planted very thinly they never branch, and the same 

 number of stems almost will be found on them at the end of 

 nine or ten weeks as they had when planted out ; moreover, 

 although the individual flowers are more circular and of a better 

 form, yet it is seldom they make a very large truss, and now 

 that the Nosegay section are so much improved by crossing, 

 some of the blooms of the Nosegays are almost as good in shape 

 as the old Zonals with double, or, I might say, three or four 

 times the amount of truss. 



Of all the Zonals, Bival has, to my mind, the finest-shaped 

 flower, but though I shall try it another year, I do not think it 

 will stand wind or rain. Glow is another very fine scarlet, but 

 the centre of the truss is too crowded, owing to the stalk of the 

 individual flowers being too short. 



Among the orange scarlets of the Hybrid Nosegay section, 

 two that were sent out this year by Downie, Laird, & Laing are 

 very good, Lady Hawley and Sunlight. Of the two, I prefer Lady 

 Hawley ; it has an immense truss with a good stiff footstalk, 

 which holds the truss erect, the habit is also good, and I shall 

 be much mistaken if it do not prove a great acquisition. 

 Kentish Fire and Masterpiece were planted out too late in 

 my trial beds this year to give them a fair trial, as they 

 had been too long in small pots ; both, however, I think are 

 good varieties. 



I hardly know whether to class Godfrey among the orange 

 scarlets or the next class I shall name, the Beds. It is very 

 free-flowering, but the footstalks are too long ; still, it is a good 

 variety. 



I will defer my remarks on the other colours till another 

 week. I only wish, in conclusion, to ask some of those who are 

 now cutting their beds of Geraniums to pieces to get cuttings 

 to try the plan of striking them later, when they finally have 

 to pull the garden to pieces in the autumn, putting them in 

 small pots, five or six cuttings in a 4-inch pot, and placing 

 them on shelves close to the glass jn vineries or elsewhere. It 

 is a great mistake to think that plants are hardened by being 

 kept cold during the winter ; and cuttings struck in this way, 

 and kept growing all the winter through, soon overtake cuttings 

 that are taken off now, struck in the open border, and then 

 potted off for winter ; and still more will they surpass those 

 that are pricked close together in boxes or pans to be struck in 

 the open air now, and stored in these pans all the winter 

 in cold frames. Warmth during winter will not make Gera- 

 niums tender, so long as they have plenty of light and are near 

 the glass. 



The earliest and best Geraniums I had this year were some 

 I put into the stove in November to grow on for cuttings; and 

 the cuttings I struck in the stove in January and forced on 

 were more forward and better plants than those struck in the 

 open air in August, were earlier in bloom, and have lasted 

 quite as long — in fact, I cannot in any one instance see that 

 they have less bloom now than those which were more backward 

 in coming into flower. They were removed from the stove into 

 a light double-span house the third week in March, and were 

 not moved out of this house till they were taken out to be 

 planted in May. I tried this with several sorts — Bayard, Grand 

 Duke, Eclat, Godfrey, Blue Bell, Lady Constance Grosvenor, 

 Violet Hill, Ne Plus Ultra, &c. Of course it would not do in 

 stoves where climbers were growing over the roof, or where 

 shade is used for ornamental-foliaged plants, but where Gera- 

 niums can have plenty of light and are not too far from th6 

 glass there need be no fear of making them tender from too 

 much warmth during the winter. The best use for cold frames 

 is not to winter plants in, but to put them into in spring, using 

 vineries and other houses during winter. — C. P. Peach, Apple- 

 ton-le- Street. 



(To be continued.) 



Exporting Cuttings of Fruit Trees to Australia. — In 

 the form of cuttings, all the new varieties of fruit trees may be 

 introduced with the certainty of success. The importance of 

 this will strike all who have experienced the losses and disap- 

 pointment attending the importation of the trees. The intro- 

 duction of new varieties is by this means rendered a very 

 simple and inexpensive matter. A case of 13 cubic feet capacity 

 will contain some thousands of cuttings, the trees of which 

 would require a space equal to many hundreds of tons measure- 

 ment. Another advantage with the cuttings is, that the case 

 may be hermetically sealed and stowed away like ordinary 

 merchandise ; whereas, special instructions as to care (which 



