38 



DICKSON ON 



until they all got on^to require it every morning. I soon found 

 the plants treated with the Flax steep to get ahead of the 

 others, and I continued to treat them in the same way 

 regularly, between five and six o'clock every morning, and very 

 soon found that ordinary sticks were useless, as the six plants 

 got up fully six feet high. I then purchased three dozen of 

 iron rods of 10 feet each, and having placed them also round 

 the plants, I commenced my work with soft twine, to spread 

 and tie up, until I had three out of the six that were in the 

 centre of clumps fully ten feet in height, whilst out of the 

 thirty I watered every morning with the New River water, 

 and in the same proportion as I used the Flax water, none of 

 them grew above four feet in height, nor were the stalks half 

 so thick as those that got the Flax water — but this was not 

 all, for my toil was well repaid by the magnificence of the 

 bloom — for never was the snowball made more round and 

 perfect than those beautiful white dahlias, which appeared in 

 scores on the overgrown plants, to the admiration of all who 

 saw them, and two gentlemen, Mr. Neil and Mr. Bamstead, 

 expressed their high admiration of them. The flowers were 

 large, and as close as could be packed from the centre, until 

 they turned round to the stem, and appeared as a snowball, 

 I had also spotted, yellow, scarlet, and crim son, equally large, 

 perfect, and beautiful — and I sent specimens to Mr. Mardock, 

 of the Regent's Park Botanical Gardens, London, and also 

 to Professor Lindley, editor of the Gardener's Chronicle. I 

 also tried it on the roses and geraniums, for the killing of 

 green flies, and for that purpose nothing could be got like it, 

 and in the cultivation of hydrangias I found it equally useful, 

 as nothing could exceed the blow I had in 1848. From the 

 above facts I can recommend its use, confident that the lovers 

 of flowers will not be disappointed in trying, as I have done, 

 the experiment, for as I know, Flax water, when let out of 

 the pits in Ireland, at my own mills near Armagh, killed the 



