248 BRECK’S NEW BOOK OF FLOWERS. 
years’ experience, I have found to produce flowers accord- 
ing to the label. The very double varieties produce seed 
very sparingly ; sometimes, from a large plant, hardly a 
single capsule with perfect seed can be gathered. The 
seed of the Balsam will germinate when four or five years 
old, and perhaps when much older. Gardeners prefer old 
seed, believing that more double flowers can be raised 
from it. To have fine plants, the seed should be sown in 
the hot-bed in March. As soon as the plants are furnished 
with two to four leaves, they should be transplanted into 
small pots ; and, if there is a good bottom heat, they will 
soon fill the pots with roots, when they should be shifted 
into those a size larger, and thus shifted from time to time 
into larger pots. By the first of June, they will generally 
begin to show the character of their flowers; the best be- 
ing selected, they should be planted out in rich garden 
soil, in beds, or in the border, at least two feet apart. If 
the soil is rich and rather moist, the plants will attain a 
monstrous size, flowering from the middle of June to the 
middle of September. The Balsam is a general favorite 
for the number, beauty, and sweetness of its flowers, and 
the uprightness and transparency of its stem: — 
“Balsam, with its shaft of amber” 
says the poet. 
The Balsam is a native of the East. The Japanese are 
said to use the juice prepared with alum to dye their nails 
red. By cultivation this beautiful flower has been much 
enlarged, and the numerous varieties have been produced, 
which form a striking contrast with the very inferior 
single ones formerly seen in our gardens, 
Mr. Martyn, in his edition of Miller’s Dictionary, speaks 
of having seen one, “the stem of which was seven inches 
in circumference, and all the parts large in proportion, 
branched ‘from top to bottom, loaded with its party-col- 
