PETER HENDERSON & CO.— INTRODUCTORY. 



ON THE SOWING OF FLOWER SEEDS. 



"With such an extended and varied list of Flower Seeds as we offer, we can here only give 

 space for a few general suggestions as to their sowing and after-treatment. More specific cultural 

 instructions will be found printed on every packet of Flower Seeds that we send out. At the 

 same time the following practical directions, taken from Peter Henderson's "Practical 

 Floriculture," we believe cannot fail to prove of value to amateur cultivators. 



"Nature provides abundantly for the reproduction of plants, and the difficulty of multiplying 

 by one method is compensated by the ease with which it may be done in another. Whenever 

 we find a plant takes root with difficulty from 'slips' or cuttings, in nine cases out of ten we 

 find that it seeds freely, and gives us a ready means of increase. Thus we find the much admired 

 Centaureas, one kind of the ' Dusty Millers,' the white-leaved plants now so much used in massing 

 and for baskets, are exceedingly difficult and slow to root from cuttings, but are readily raised 

 from seeds. Our fine strains of blotched Petunias are also troublesome as cuttings, but make 

 plants quickly from seeds. The Cyclamen, with its turnip-like stem or bulb, could only be 

 propagated by cutting in pieces, disfiguring its shape, and requiring years to form a circular bulb 

 again, but here we have seed coming to our help which germinates freely, and makes a flowering 

 plant in one year. The Apple Geranium never affords proper cuttings from which to make a 

 plant, but it seeds freely, from which splendid plants can be produced in a few months. So the 

 Primulas and Cinerarias, both slow and uncertain from cuttings, seed freely. And so with 

 hundreds of other plants, to which our space will not permit us to refer. There is no rule by 

 which we can designate what plants are best propagated by seeds, and what by cuttings, experience 

 being the only teacher, and even the experience of a lifetime is too short for those of us that 

 have had the largest practice. 



" Seedling plants can be nearly as well raised in the window of a sitting-room or parlor, 

 provided the temperature is right, as in a greenhouse, for seeds do not need a strong direct light 

 while germinating — in fact, that is often a difficulty in a greenhouse, as the surface of the 

 seed-bed dries up too quickly in the direct sunshine, necessitating watering, which bakes the 

 surface. The best thing wherein to sow seeds is shallow boxes; these need not be more than two 

 orthree inches deep, with open seams at the bottom through which water will drain quickly. 

 Fill the boxes within half an inch of the top with light, rich earth ; if it can be procured, nothing 

 is better than black leaf mold from the woods, or light sandy soil, mixed with an equal bulk of 

 stable manure, so rotted as to resemble leaf mold ; it will not answer unless rotted as fine as dust. 

 In the absence of either of these, sweepings from a paved street are excellent, mixed with light 

 sandy soil, the object in all cases being lightness of the soil or mold in which the seed is to be 

 sown; for if tiny seeds, as many of our flower-seeds are, are imbedded in a stiff soil, the germ in 

 many of them is too weak to push its way to the light. When the proper soil has been secured, 

 pat it down with a smooth board until it is as smooth and level as it well can be, then sow the 

 seed over the surface, distributing it evenly; then take a common kitchen sieve and sift just so 

 much earth evenly over the seed as will cover it, and no more; then take a watering-pot ■with 

 the finest kind of a rose, and shower the earth with spray. Keep the box at a temperature as 

 near sixty degrees as possible, taking care to give it a shower of spray only when the surface 

 appears to be dry; but few seeds will fail to germinate under such conditions. But after the seeds 

 have 'brairded,' as the Scotch gardeners say, comes another difficulty; in quite a number of plants, 

 particularly if sown in the house, just as soon as the seed leaf has developed, and before the first 

 rough or true leaves have formed, the seedling is attacked by a minute fungus, that will often 

 sweep off the whole crop in forty-eight hours if not attended to. The required attention is, that 

 as soon as there are indications of the ' damping off ' of these tiny seedlings, they must be carefully 

 taken up and planted out in similar boxes, prepared exactly as the seed-boxes have been; they 

 may be planted quite closely, not more than half an inch apart, and let their further treatment 

 be exactly as in germinating the seeds. In the course of a few weeks they will have grown freely, 

 and they may then be lifted and be placed in similar boxes, but wider apart, say three or four 

 inches, or potted singly in two and a half or three inch pots as most convenient, until such a 

 time as they are to be planted out in the open ground, or to be used otherwise." 



