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KIDD'S OWN JOURNAL. 



of fine flowers in any saleable quantity ; at 

 least with very few exceptions. 



Stocks, Asters, Balsams, Hollyhocks, and 

 one or two other subjects, will now and then 

 give a moderate supply : but the very best 

 growers of these things, for sale or market, 

 frequently have great difficulty in keeping up 

 their own supply, and had they not saved a 

 little from former seasons, would have fre- 

 quently been foiled. Many have failed in 

 their supply of stock-seed, for want of single 

 flowers ; and but for having made a reserve 

 in former seasons, must have been thrown 

 out altogether. We do not see how to mend 

 the fault we have been finding with the seed 

 shops. People order sixpennyworth of 

 geranium seed. What can they expect for 

 the money ? Why, what they get— plants 

 of the common sort, remarkable for nothing 

 but their strong growing and free seeding : no 

 man will part with a grain likely to produce 

 him a valuable improvement. A man must 

 be rather ambitious of name than of profit 

 when he parts with a better quality of seed 

 than can be got elsewhere ; and particularly 

 if it be a subject that he excels in among 

 those who grow for sale. The following is 

 the result of samples had of nine London 

 seed shops (all mixed) : 



Geraniums, — Not one good flower — all very 

 comrut n. 



Aquilegia. — One pretty and varied, the rest very 

 common single columbine. 



Balsams. — All much below an average ; very 

 single, and most of them coarse growers. 



Polyanthus. — All very common, colorless, clingy, 

 "wild-looking sorts ; very little difference in the 

 complexion of the flowers, and many Oxlips and 

 Cowslips among them. 



Verbenas. — All below the average of old sorts, 

 very common, and narrow petals. 



Hollyhocks. — Upon an average, half of them 

 all but single, the remainder various grades of 

 semi-double ; not one up to the present average 

 of good flowers. 



Hollyhocks fin sealed packets) . — In some cases 

 the same grown as served in the bulk to the shops. 

 In one packet of a hundred, thirteen fine double 

 flowers, average stamp of good flowers ; in another 

 grower's hundred, twenty-three ditto; in a third, 

 forty-three worth saving for a fine collection. 



Pinks. — Not a double pink in the whole nine 

 samples ; some very pretty semi-doubles, many 

 like the old single white. 



Picotees. — All rough-edge, French-looking 

 varieties. None with more than two rows of 

 petals; colors all speckled. 



Carnations. — Very similar in character, much 

 serrated, and one-third in some cases, two-thirds 

 in other samples, yellow grounds and confused 

 stripes ; but none beyond semi-double. 



Primula sinensis. — Nearly every one very 

 narrow-petalled, deeply indented, and very poor ; 

 pale sickly rose color, and ten per cent, white. 

 All very common. 



How is this to be otherwise? What does 



every man do who wants a bit of good seed ? 

 He selects the best, if there be only one ; puts 

 it away somewhere for seed, and finds it 

 difficult. He leaves the others to their fate : 

 they give him a good harvest ; he sells the 

 seed to the first shopkeeper he can persuade 

 to buy it, and sows himself the few he can 

 save from the best that he laid by. 



It never can be otherwise until we are all 

 taught to love other people better than our- 

 selves. Any man determined to sell the seed 

 of the best varieties, likely to produce better 

 as well as worse flowers than we grow, might, 

 we admit, very soon get a name ; but he must 

 sell in sealed packets, his seed must be iden- 

 tified with himself, even when it reaches the 

 sower's hands. But it is no easy matter to 

 establish confidence to start with ; and if this 

 be not done, he places the buyers of his seed 

 upon an equality with himself before he can 

 reap the advantage. We remember to have 

 seen once a very bad lot of a particular plant 

 bedded out of the pots they were blooming 

 in, and we asked if that was the best lot 

 they had? " no ! " answered the man who 

 was planting, " these are for seed, and will 

 give a larger and plumper sample than better 

 sorts." 



It is so in most things. We have, how- 

 ever, one observation to make. It is not 

 everybody's sealed packets that are neces- 

 sarily good. We have observed some adver- 

 tising such a seed, saved from 150 varieties. 

 Those we should avoid. Seed saved from the 

 best half-dozen would be worth fifty times as 

 much as that saved from the collection, even 

 if the good plants were among them ; for in 

 a collection of 150 varieties of anything, no 

 matter what, all the coarse ones would yield 

 plenty ; the better ones very, very few, and 

 the best none — absolutely none. The con- 

 clusion we arrive at is this — to do any good, 

 you must buy or select the very best only ; 

 save exclusively from these, sow and bring 

 up the young ones, and you have a chance. 

 Save the best from these to seed again, and 

 do as before, you cannot fail but improve ; 

 but imagine yourself selling your best seed at 

 a shop instead of sowing it, and what recom- 

 pence would tempt you? Why, you would 

 require fifty times the sum that you dare ask 

 for it by retail — much less give for it. 



How then can any man expect what he 

 calls good seed at seed-shop price ? The 

 thing is impossible. And we should know 

 something more of a man than his growth of 

 a flower to have any faith in obtaining a good 

 new variety out of even his sealed packets ; 

 though we should like a pinch out of what 

 he sows himself. It cannot, we again observe, 

 be expected that a man, who is trying hard 

 for novelties, and sowing every year to obtain 

 them, should part with a single grain of seed 

 that is likely to bring one. And if we are 



