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CULTURE OF DAHLIAS. 
All the new and splendid varieties which now make so great show in our gardens, 
have been raised from seed. To ensure success to the cultivator the following rules 
may be found advantageous : — 
1. Artificial impregnation is certainly an advantage, and, if properly performed, 
will seldom fail to answer the intended purpose ; the greater part raised at Chats- 
worth, under these circumstances, have proved excellent flowers. 
2. Select as handsome and compact flowering plants for the parents as possible. 
Having done so, with a small pointed camel’s hair pencil, take the pollen dust from 
one flower to another. The design of this, however, would in a great measure be 
frustrated, if bees were not prevented having access to the flowers. 
3. To prevent any disappointment from bees, cover the flowers intended to be 
the female parent, with a fine gauze bag, for two or three days before the florets 
expand, as recommended in the Horticultural Register, page 145. 
4. As soon as the florets open, impregnate them, but retain the gauze bag over 
them for another week, until all danger of impregnation from bees is over. 
5. In collecting the seed in autumn, most cultivators collect from the outside 
tiers alone, because they are usually much finer and better ripened. These outside 
tiers, however, are probably inferior to the inside, for producing the greatest quan- 
tity of double flowers, the very finest seeds usually producing the greatest number 
of single flowers. We would therefore advise to collect both inside and outside 
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tiers. 
6. February is the best time for sowing the seed. Fill some pots or boxes with 
light sandy loam and leaf mould, or leaf mould alone, and thinly scatter the seeds, 
lightly cover them with the same soil finely rubbed through the hands upon them, 
and place the pots in a gentle hotbed, or other convenient place where the seeds 
will receive warmth, and they will shortly be up. 
7- As soon as they come into rough leaf, which will be about the end of March, 
transplant them, two inches apart, into other pots or boxes filled with the same 
compost in which they were sown. About the middle of April they will again 
require transplanting. 
8. In transplanting this second time, either place them in single pots filled with 
a mixture of good rich loam, leaf mould, and rotten dung, or plant them in a gentle 
hotbed, in the same kind of soil. The former is the best way, although attended 
with most trouble, because the plants can remain in the pots until they are turned 
out entire into the borders, when all danger of frost is over. 
9. Keep them still in a gentle heat, and gradually expose them to the open air, 
until they will bear it regularly in the day, but take them in when there is the 
least danger of frost at night. 
