160 



JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



seed-head yield flowers of all colours, and lie feels convinced that 

 many of the Guernsey seedlings of twenty or thirty years ago, 

 and then discarded as not fulfilling the conditions required, 

 would, if they existed now, he placed in the so-called Japanese 

 section. In those days they failed to " fill the bill " of the 

 florist's ideal, and were thrown away as " rags." 



A very celebrated amateur cultivator in Guernsey, to whom I 

 wrote concerning the rearing of seedlings, kindly replied as fol- 

 lows : " As to saving seeds, we always try to do so every season, but 

 in damp autumns it is most difficult. We have no secrets about 

 the subject, merely choosing the finest kinds and placing them 

 near to each other so as to secure cross-fertilisation by means of 

 the flies. We then very carefully dry the heads of seeds, sowing 

 them as soon as ripe, and blooming them the same autumn. All 

 our seed is now saved in a dry, warm, and airy greenhouse, but 

 we have had a splendid harvest during dry seasons from plants 

 outside on a wall covered by a glass coping and protected by a 

 blind in wet cold weather." 



Very few growers in Guernsey now save seeds as compared with 

 those of twenty or thirty years ago, when incurved varieties or 

 pompons only were all the rage. Major Carey's gardener (M. N. 

 Priaulx), however, still harvests seeds, as I am told, under glass. 

 Major Carey, to whom I wrote in 1885, very kindly gave me the 

 following list of varieties, as raised by himself to that date : — 



Beaumont 

 Belle of Japan 

 Yokohama Orange 

 Diamond 

 Sir Isaac Brock 

 Emperor Nicholas 

 Red Gauntlet 

 The Khedive 



Ethel 

 Sarnia 



Bijou of Guernsey 

 Peter the Great 

 The Czar 

 Hackney Holmes 

 Victoria 



Mrs. Charles Carey 



Another notable raiser in Guernsey is Mr. James Downton 

 (gardener to Saumerez Carey, Esq., of The Grange), who will 

 long be remembered as the raiser of that " snowy-breasted 

 pearl," Elaine, and her scarcely less popular foster-sister, Fair 

 Maid of Guernsey. As I have shown, James Salter was 

 raised by Mr. Alfred Salter, from cut flower-heads in water, in 

 1869, and it is interesting to know that this variety bore the seed 

 from which these twin varieties were raised. Mr. Downton, 

 at my request, was good enough to tell me the history of the 



