ANNUAL FLOWERS. 



183 



these rogues left in this year for seeding would represent 15 to 20 per 

 cent, in the progeny next year. 



When growing a large bed of anything one sees a slight variation, or 

 sometimes a great variation, for the better, as one thinks, in one plant. 

 It is marked in some way, generally by placing a stick against it, and the 

 seed of this selected plant is saved separately, and grown on the following 

 year. Possibly one finds the plants from this selection come 50 per cent, 

 true, possibly 20 per cent., possibly 10 per cent. ; not infrequently one 

 finds not even one plant like the plant the seed was saved from. If one 

 finds 50 or 20 per cent, true to the original, it means pulling up and 

 throwing away all that are not true, and continuing this performance for 

 three or four and often five or six following seasons before one attains 

 one's object in getting a fixity of type ; and perhaps during those three, 



Fig. 28.— Candytuft — old form on left; 'hyacinth-flowered' on right. 



four, or six years of selecting and fixing, one season is a very bad one, as 

 we not infrequently get in this country, and you get no seed at all from 

 your labours — these are some of the disappointments one has to face. I 

 once, some years ago, selected one plant, a very much improved culinary 

 pea, a very fine podded Telegraph Pea, out of a great number of Tele- 

 graph Pea plants ; in five years after the first year — i.e. six years in all — > 

 I had succeeded in having grown from this, 100 bushels of seed. These 

 had been threshed, cleaned, and put into sacks in the grower's barn. That 

 very night there was a fire, which burnt down the barn and all my 100 

 bushels of peas. So it often is with selections : there are many dis- 

 appointments in addition to the care and trouble required in selecting 

 and increasing these new and improved varieties of flowers and vegetables, 

 and it is therefore very costly work, much more costly than is often 

 thought. 



