SEEDLING DAFFODILS. 



95 



or Maximus. How lovely the soft pale colouring of pallidas 

 precox is ; but we must have a much better-behaved pallidus- 

 praecox — I mean a Daffodil which is both pale and precocious, 

 but which does not die suddenly, as this pale precocious child 

 does. Selection might give us this, for it seems there are 

 several varieties, from different districts and different levels, of 

 these pale early trumpets, and one may prove hardier than 

 another, or seedlings might acquire greater hardiness. Sir 

 Herbert Maxwell assured me that he could never get Corbularia 

 conspicua to establish itself comfortably in his Scotch garden 

 until he raised it from seed. Or a cross between a strong and 

 good early yellow Daffodil, and as robust a white one as can be 

 found, might provide us with a most substantial straw-coloured 

 early variety. Then, who will supply us with a large, bold, 

 white trumpet Daffodil, substantial in flower, and robust in 

 constitution — an out-of-doors Eucharis ? We have no white 

 kind that the market gardener finds it worth his while to grow, 

 unless, indeed, it is Messrs. de Graaf's noble Madame de Graaf, 

 of which, however, we know little as yet as to its behaviour under 

 field cultivation in England, and if it is satisfactory in all points, 

 yet it stands alone, and there is room for other seedlings like it. 

 It is worth while to raise white seedlings — some of the whites 

 yield large and good seed — and I have flowered the young plants 

 in their fifth and even in their fourth year. Also it will be well to 

 raise plants in quantity between the larger yellows and the 

 stronger whites. The white hybrid forms, such as Leedsi and 

 Leedsi amabilis, though of good constitution, are far too soft in 

 the flower for market purposes ; the crown melts in sun and 

 wind, and the market gardener will gladly accept something 

 more durable if we will invent it for him by selecting as robust 

 seed parents as is possible. 



Here I may point out that the modern hybridist has enor- 

 mously better materials to work with than Mr. Leeds, for instance, 

 had. Not to speak of the fine new Ajax forms which have 

 appeared of late years, he seems to have possessed none but 

 inferior, narrow-petalled varieties of the Poeticus — one of the 

 hybridist's most necessary elements. Our beautiful, broad- 

 petalled, vigorous N. p. ornatus ought to give us incomparabilis 

 flowers of enhanced shape and substance. Again, there is a 

 vacant place for a big and sturdy mid-season or late flower, such 



