CHRYSANTHEMUM SEEDS AND SEEDING. 



161 



birth of Elaine, and no words of mine could tell the story 

 better. 



" About seventeen or eighteen years ago," says Mr. Downton, 

 " I sent for a plant of James Salter, a new Japanese variety, to 

 grow for conservatory decoration. I flowered it in a south house, 

 and having given up raising seed I thought no more about it 

 until one day my friend, Mr. C. Smith, the raiser of so many 

 fine kinds, went into the house and noticed its dried and withered 

 blooms, and set me looking at the seed-heads, when I noticed for 

 the first time some seed. I sowed it the same spring, producing 

 Fair Maid of Guernsey and Elaine. The plant of James 

 Salter was the only Japanese variety in the house, all the rest 

 being incurved and reflexed kinds. The Japanese varieties were 

 very little thought of a few years previous, and I have known 

 hundreds of single and half-double flowers consigned to the 

 rubbish-heap, which were certainly superior by far to many of the 

 kinds now common." 



Portugal. — In Portugal, where, as Consul Crawford tells us, 

 the Japanese varieties were introduced and grown long before 

 they were imported to England, seed is produced with tolerable 

 facility. An amateur Chrysanthemum grower in Oporto kindly 

 tells me that James Salter, Fair Maid of Guernsey, and 

 other so-called Japanese kinds, produce seed in his garden in 

 the open air. He also corroborates what Mr. Forsyth, of Stoke 

 Newington, told us long ago in the Gardeners' Magazine (April 

 20, 1872), viz. : that the earliest and finest of the flower-heads 

 produce no seed, but that the poor and straggling pendulous 

 flowers, which are borne on weak axillary branches at the end of 

 the season, or in February or March, do so pretty plentifully if 

 kept dry. In Oporto cross-fertilisation is effected by a small 

 drone fly, and also by small beetles. In America, also, where 

 Dr. H. P. Walcott and Mr. John Thorpe were the pioneers in 

 saving seed, I am told that the flies are found to be useful in 

 crossing the various seed-bearing varieties. 



Southeen France.— Of all modern seedling raisers the place 

 of honour must perforce be accorded to M. Simon Delaux, of St. 

 Martin du Touch, pres Toulouse. In 1864 he first obtained some 

 of the then new importations introduced by Mr. Fortune from 

 Japan in 1862, and in 1866 he from these obtained his first crop 

 of seed. During 1872 and 1873 he sold to M. Boucharlet several 



M 



