288 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



to lemon, and of as varying forms and doubleness. And it may 

 further be interesting to mention that I have seen the best of 

 these deep orange flowered plants removed when in bloom to 

 an isolated position and replanted, and the check caused by 

 the removal has influenced the plants to produce flowers of a 

 lemon colour, which gradually deepened again to orange as the 

 plants became established. 



The French marigold is another illustration of a sportive- 

 plant. Yellow, striped, or crimson flowers may be, and often are, 

 produced on a plant at the same time, the first more likely when 

 the growth is slow, the last when growth is rapid. It will be 

 evident, therefore, that to fix a correctly and permanently striped 

 type will demand more than usual care. As a class it rapidly 

 deteriorates unless the utmost watchfulness is bestowed on its 

 selection, and some years ago it seemed that the utmost one 

 could do was to maintain the standard which had been already 

 achieved. I appealed to Mr. Dobbie for the light of his long- 

 experience, and that gentleman assured me he had seen as good 

 flowers fifty years ago as then. Cold cheer this for an enthusiast, 

 but I thought perhaps his memory had failed him. So I set to 

 work with renewed effort, saved seed from almost every type of 

 flower, isolated such plants as were pre-eminently good, and now, 

 after a series of exhaustive experiments through several seasons, 

 I have the satisfaction of finding myself certainly nearer to the 

 coveted goal of perfectly striped flowers on plants that never 

 vary. 



M. Vilmorin, of Paris, mentions "some experiments he made 

 with the annual Chrysanthemum carinatum. He sowed seeds 

 saved from double, semi-double, and single flowers growing on 

 the same plant, and the results in all cases were the same. Before 

 I had read of M. Vilmorin's trials I had grown plants from seeds 

 saved in the same manner, and the result only confirms the French 

 experiments. 



The fancy pansy, again, is another plant that will not as yet 

 come true from seed, however carefully it may be saved to name 

 or colour. A large number of seedlings were this year grown on 

 our grounds under the parental names, and looking at the beds 

 when in full bloom one would have said that the seeds must have 

 been very carefully mixed. I saw in a Berkshire garden this 

 season some thousands of seedlings all produced from the seeds 



