176 
THE ELORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 
most beautiful of all the kinds of stocks, the Bromptons, get killed by 
the severity of the winter ; but this may be avoided by taking up the 
plants before winter, and potting them, or by planting them in spare 
melon pit or cold frame, and afterwards replanting them into the open 
ground in spring ; but they never flower so well or grow so large as 
when they survive the winter in the open border. In saving the seed 
much depends ; for stocks, as well as all highly domesticated plants 
annually reproduced from seed, are very subject to degenerate, and it 
requires a constant vigilance to preserve or improve the race. I shall 
now endeavour to find out what is the best means of obtaining double 
flowers with good colours. In selecting the plants from which to 
save seed, choose always those with brightest and clearest colour, 
broadest petals, densest flower-spikes, most numerous side branches, 
and dwarfest habit ; and avoid all those plants with few lateral 
branches, robust habit, thinly-set flower-spike, and broken colours. 
Much also depends on the season ; for if the summer should prove a 
very dry and warm one, the seeds will be much better as regards 
the production of double flowers ; while, on the contrary, if the 
summer should prove to be cold and wet, nearly all the plants will 
be single ; and this accounts why the German-saved seed is always 
superior to that saved in England. It should also be observed that 
the seed of each colour and kind of Stock should be saved at as great 
a distance from the other as possible ; otherwise bad colours are the 
effect. The bottom flowers on the spike only should be allowed to 
produce seed, which is easily done by pinching the top ones off ; and, 
finally, the best seed is obtained where large quantities are grown, 
and where the plants are allowed to remain where sown, and treated 
as above stated. There are some who suppose, because a plant with 
single flowers be surrounded by double ones, it must produce seed 
from which nearly all the produce will be double ; but I need hardly 
say that such is not the case, for the quantity of double flowers has 
no effect upon the single, but merely indicates that the breed is a 
good one. 
ADAM I A VERSICOLOR, 
S OR some time after the introduction of this plant, it 
was generally complained of as being a shy bloomer, 
and some persons still experience the same difficulty in 
its culture. 
It certainly cannot be considered a first-class plant, the 
flowers not being high-coloured nor very showy ; but with proper 
management it is a most profuse bloomer ; its bydrangea-like heads of 
flowers being produced in succession for months, and remain long 
in perfection ; and when seen in the form of a well-grown specimen, 
with every shoot terminated by a head of flowers, it is well deserv- 
ing of a place in even select collections. Propagation is readily 
effected by means of cuttings of the young wood in a rather firm 
state. These should be selected as early in the season as they can 
