THE FLORAL MAGAZINE. 



growth in the spring, much more easily, indeed, than 

 the Common Briar and other Rose stocks, and as a 

 consequence we have noted that Roses on the Manetti 

 suffer from spring frosts under conditions in which 

 the same varieties worked on Briar stocks escape 

 injury. 



Hybrid Columbines. — In the summer of 1874 



Mr. Anderson Henry crossed the blue Aquilegia cceru- 

 lea with the yellow A. chrysantha, and the seedlings 

 which bloomed in June, 1876, were intermediate, the 

 outer reflexed segments being of a delicate lavender 

 blue, and the inner ones pale yellow. In colour the 

 male parent A. chrysantha seems to have exerted the 

 most influence. This hybrid is a very handsome one, 

 bearing very large long spurred flowers, and all the 

 seedlings from this union appear to be the same in 

 colour and general appearance. It may be as well 

 here to draw attention to the fact that Aquilegias 

 generally are very susceptible of the influence of 

 foreign pollen, and but little reliance can in conse- 

 quence be placed on the seed of any particular species 

 coming true. 



Permanence op Garden Varieties. — The old 



test of a species or type was its inherent fixity, its 

 " coming true " from seed under widely varying con- 

 ditions of growth, but now we know that many of 

 the wild types introduced to our gardens of recent 

 years do not perpetuate their characters more exactly 

 than do some hybrids when raised from seed, while, on 

 the other hand, many sports and variegated varieties 

 reproduce themselves from seed under cultivation as 

 precisely as the most pure wild types. This is par- 

 ticularly observable in Asters, Hollyhocks, Stocks, 

 Zonal Pelargonium, " Madame Vaucher," P. " Chris- 

 tine," Coboea scandens variegata, Mesembryanthe- 

 mum variegatum, some Brassicaceous plants, and 

 many others. Indeed, when we come to fully realise 

 the permanence of some varieties, and the precision 

 with which they are reproduced by seed, together 

 with the communication of colour or variegation by 

 grafting variegated scions on green-leaved Stocks, we 

 may well ask ourselves whether permanence or fixity 

 in any variety or race is not due to weak characteristics 

 in some cases, as well as to strong ones in others, just 

 as diseases and peculiarities of colour are hereditary 

 in the human race. 



Eastern Garden Literature. — The horticultural 



literature of Europe is doubtless of the most en- 

 lightened kind, but there is some danger of our 



forgetting that it was in Asia that gardening origi- 

 nated, and it is to the East that we must look for the 

 oldest records of this the oldest art. Our own garden- 

 ing literature is scarcely 400 years old, and yet we 

 have it on reliable authority that the Moutan Peony is 

 mentioned in the gardening records of China as hav- 

 ing been cultivated for 1400 years. The Chinese and 

 Japanese are now, as they have been for many genera- 

 tions, the best of all Eastern gardeners, and their 

 gardening literature is not only extensive and varied, 

 but much of it is written in the most universal of all 

 modern languages — wood engraving. When we know 

 that in Japan the practice of plant improvement by 

 culture and selection, if not by hybridism, has been 

 earned on by particular families, from father to son, 

 for hundreds of years, we long to possess translations 

 of their copiously illustrated Kwa-wi and other popu- 

 lar horticultural works. 



Propagation op Trees and Shrubs. — An Aus- 

 trian nurseryman, M. Bachraty, recommends the fol- 

 lowing as a successful method of increasing trees and 

 shrubs by cuttings. Briefly this method is as follows : 

 " The cuttings," says the ' Gardeners' Chronicle/ 

 " are taken off at the beginning of July, from 6 or 7 

 to 12 inches long, according to the kind. The leaves 

 are removed from the lower portion which is to enter 

 the ground, but those which will come above-ground 

 are attached. Beds are prepared for them in the open 

 air by thorough digging and levelling, and afterwards 

 applying a superficial layer, about 2 inches thick, of 

 rotten dung from a spent hotbed. The cuttings are 

 then stuck in about 2 inches apart and in a somewhat 

 oblique direction. Each bed when filled is surrounded 

 with a lath fence, so that shade may be given when 

 the sun is very hot, and the cuttings are well watered 

 in with a rose-spouted can. This completes the opera- 

 tion. The only further care necessary is a sprinkling 

 overhead three or four times a day during the first 

 week, if the weather be very hot, and once a day 

 afterwards. In the course of five or six weeks, treated 

 in the manner indicated, the cuttings of most things 

 will have formed a callus, and further shading will be 

 unnecessary. Late in the autumn a layer of rough 

 dung, 2 or 3 inches thick, is spread over for winter 

 protection. It also serves as manure when the cut- 

 tings start growing in the spring ; and cuttings 

 treated thus make extraordinary growth — in fact, 

 plants equal to two-year-old plants from winter or 

 spring cuttings." 



