October 24, 1872. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER, 



S23 



pollen. A well-charged under petal will fertilise several blooms 

 of the Viola. Now tie a piece of scarlet worsted round the 

 footstalk of the blooms operated on, to direct us to the 

 hybridised capsule, and protect the blooms from the intrusion 

 of insects with a piece of fine net. If the weather should prove 

 favourable, which is indispensable, and the cross prove suc- 

 cessful, the capsule will ripen in three weeks. The seeds, 

 whenever they become brown, should be sown immediately, 

 and the seedlings brought on as fast as possible. 



This season a batch of seedling hybrids from a Viola like 

 Perfection, crossed with various-coloured Pansies, have flowered 

 here. Among others there are two very fine shades of blue, 

 lilacs, clarets, dark shaded with blue ; but their constitution, 

 dwarfness, and freedom of flowering has yet to be proved. 

 This season I have a large quantity of seedlings from crosses 

 with V. cornuta Mauve Queen and various coloured Pansies. 

 The above-mentioned hybrids from Perfection are to flower next 

 spring, and Viola cornuta Mauve Queen is invariably the mother. 

 I feel sure without the Viola habit we shall not succeed in 

 obtaining the desirable properties requisite for a good bedding 

 plant ; but I am as sure that in a very few years we shall have 

 splendid variety in the colour of the cornuta race, quite ex- 

 celling all bedding Pansies in constitution and freedom of 

 flowering. To assist in attaining this desirable end I offer 

 these few thoughts on the subject, with all deference to hybrid- 

 ists, for what they are worth. — C. Stuart, M.D., Hillside, 

 Chirneide, N.B. 



SUCCESSION OF GERANIUM FLOWERS. 

 Many may be glad if you would call their attention to the 

 facility with which a good show of Geraniums may be secured in 

 flower through a great part of the winter by merely taking off the 

 buds during the summer. Very little glass is required, as the 

 plants stand out of doors till the end of September, when they 

 may be left to flower in a room. My neighbours often say to me, 

 " How is it you always get flowers in your rooms in the winter, 

 when hardly anyone has any?" They have been surprised to 

 hear how easy it is. — E.F. G. T. 



MOVING LARGE TREES. 



I have long thought that moving large trees is a mistake, 

 and generally involves a waste of money. "Where funds are 

 forthcoming it is easy enough to build houses, but timber trees 

 are things of the past as well as of the present, and ancestral 

 Oaks cannot be bought except as felled timber. Even ever- 

 green shrubs cannot be planted too small if the finest speci- 

 mens are desired in the future. In making a new garden, were 

 the same money expended in manuring and trenching the soil 

 as is spent in large shrubs over and above what small ones 

 would have cost, I believe that in five years the advantage 

 would be obvious to anyone. Most shrubs make a great pro- 

 gress in good soil in five years ; large shrubs transplanted 

 often take that time to recover, and nearly as long to die ; 

 but in the ease of timber trees I can hardly think anything 

 more unlikely than that they can be moved of large size, and 

 afterwards make permanent trees. 



Who does not know that trees make roots in proportion to 

 . their wants ? A timber tree in an exposed situation must be 

 well anchored to the soil, but if a thick plantation be too much 

 thinned at once, the first high wind will show how little hold 

 the trees have on the soil. What takes place when a large 

 timber tree is removed ? It may have been growing in a shel- 

 tered situation ; you plant it, perhaps, in an exposed one ; the 

 soil in which it has been growing may be light and sandy, that 

 to which it is removed may be clay. In a deep soil its roots 

 may have found plenty of moisture, and it is planted, perhaps, 

 on a dry hill top. It is a fine specimen, and you desire to 

 remove it ; because it found everything favourable to its de- 

 velopment where it has grown for perhaps fifty years, is it 

 very probable it will continue in good health and beauty for 

 another fifty when the circumstances — its " surroundings," as 

 the Americans say — are so different ? 



But the question, How is it going to fasten itself to the 

 earth ? is to me the most difficult question. Of course you must 

 support it effectually, or the first high wind will lay it pro- 

 strate. Plenty of wire rope tied a good way up, and well fastened 

 to oak stakes driven in the ground, will render it secure ,' and 

 give you, whilst they remain, as much idea of a ship's mast as 

 an " ancestral Oak." But this is only for a time, some will 

 say. When the tree has made fresh roots they can be removed. 



There is, I think, the question of most importance. When will 

 it have made these fresh roots ? No doubt, if the tree in any 

 degree gets over its removal, it will make fresh roots to sus- 

 tain life, and in some case — few cases, I think — grow vigor- 

 ously where the soil and situation are favourable ; but how is 

 it to make roots sufficient to maintain its position when the 

 wire rigging is removed ? Is it in any better position than a 

 crowded forest tree? I think not, and that those who spend 

 their money in this manner ought to look on it as spent to 

 produce a temporary effect merely till trees planted of small 

 size have time to grow. — J. R. Pearson, Chilwell. 



CALCEOLARIA FAILURES. 



Failures being common with the bedding Calceolaria, I 

 give the following as a successful mode of culture, involving 

 half the usual labour, and securing continuous growth and 

 bloom. Prepare the frames early in October, by putting under 

 them 4 or 5 inches of sandy soil, and so as to allow of the 

 frames being tilted on bricks to give air at the bottom. Apply 

 lime water, if necessary. Insert the cuttings firmly at the 

 latest possible period, putting them in 2£ inches apart. Water 

 them overhead, and keep them close till they look fresh ; then 

 push off the lights and lift up the frames in front, except in 

 wet and frosty weather. If the thermometer fall more than 

 8° below freezing, cover up with plenty of litter till the plants 

 have thawed. Twice stopping will be sufficient, once in Feb- 

 ruary, and again towards the end of March. 



Turn out the plants permanently 9 or 10 inches apart during 

 the first mild days in April, using them for back lines or 

 centres. The borders should be deeply dug in autumn, ma- 

 nured if poor, well forked in spring, and surface-stirred in hot 

 weather. In 1871, I planted about the middle of April. In 

 1872, on March 18th, and the plants were blooming in the 

 last week of June, and have not ceased to do so yet. Four 

 hundred plants wintered in the shrubbery unprotected were 

 fourteen days later. The sorts I grow are — Sparkler, height 

 1 J foot; Kayii, ljfoot; Aurea, 1 foot 3 inches ; and Victor 

 Emmanuel, 1 foot. — Charles Prinsep, Goldthorn Hill. 



HARDY GEMS.— No. 4. 



Lithospermuh Gastoni.— =This takes rank as one of the 

 most beautiful as well as one of the rarest plants belonging to 

 the flora of Europe. The honour of introducing it belongs to 

 Messrs. Backhouse, of York. It is dwarf in habit, rarely ex- 

 ceeding 10 or 12 inches in height, producing straight branches 

 from the base ; the leaves are ovate-lanceolate, tapering to a 

 point, about 2 inches long, and bright rich green on the upper 

 side, but considerably paler below. In May it forms a leafy 

 corymb of brilliant flowers of a rich violet colour, shading off 

 to a lovely blue, with a white eye. It -is a most desirable 

 plant; indeed, it may be styled a gem of the first water. 

 Native of the Spanish side of the Eastern Pyrenees. 



Lychnis Lagasc2e. — Again I come before my readers with a 

 plant from the Pyrenees, but this time from the north-western 

 side. The plant in question is far too little known, for as a 

 rock plant I really do not remember one that pleases me 

 better. It is dwarf in habit, forming a dense much-branched 

 tuft, clothed with linear-obtuse, or somewhat lanceolate, and 

 glaucous leaves. The flowers are abundantly produced, and 

 are of a charming soft rose colour, with a white eye. It blooms 

 during the months of May and June, and is a rare plant even 

 in its native country. 



Eritrichum nanusi. — This plant reminds one somewhat of 

 a Forget-me-not. It forms dense tufts ; the leaves are fur- 

 nished with short white hairs, which give the plant a some- 

 what hoary appearance. During May these tufts or patches 

 are covered with flowers of the most vivid azure blue it is 

 possible to conceive. The effect the plant ' produces when 

 judiciously planted must be seen to be appreciated. It re- 

 quires to be well exposed to the sun and light, but must have 

 a good supply of loam and peat to root into. It comes from 

 the Swiss Alps, where, we are told, it is covered with snow for 

 several months in the year. 



Iberis jucunda. — With me this plant has died during the 

 winter, but as it lived through the previous one I cannot call 

 it anything but hardy. It is a charming species, forming 

 compact tufts or bushes, ranging from 4 to 6 inches high. It 

 is an abundant bloomer, producing 'its terminal soft pink 

 heads of flowers about the end of April, and continuing nearly 



