318 APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES. 



prived them of all their flowers as soon as he found 

 that five or six seed-vessels were formed upon each 

 spike, by which means he compelled all the nutritive 

 matter that would have been expended upon the 

 whole flower-spike and its numerous seed-vessels to be 

 concentrated in the small number which he left ; and 

 the result, he says, was, that from the seed thus saved 

 he had more than 400 Double Stocks in one small bed. 

 There can, I think, be no doubt that, if any original 

 change to a double flower can possibly be effected by 

 art, it will be more likely to occur with respect to 

 those species which have an indefinite number of 

 stamens, where the tendency to this monstrosity al- 

 ready exists. It is not many years since the Chryseis 

 (Eschscholtzia) Oalifornica, a polyandrous plant, was 

 introduced to our gardens ; and I, at one time, made 

 some attempts to render it double, conceiving it a 

 good subject for experiment on that account, but 

 I had no success ; it has, however, accidentally be- 

 come semi-double in Mrs. Marryat's garden, at Wim- 

 bledon ; and I entertain no doubt that seed skilfully 

 saved from that plant would present its flowers in a 

 still more double condition. 



CHAPTEE XIX. 



OP RESTING. 



A gardener is said to rest a plant when he ex- 

 poses it to a condition in which it cannot grow, and 



