320 
RAISING SEEDLING FLOWERS. 
latter circumstances prove to be strictly 
limited to one season's growth. This, no 
doubt, arises from the fact that its effort at 
fructification is not perfect, and consequently 
the plants are not so much exhausted as after 
flowering in their native regions. The re- 
sult of this is, that sometimes, after flowering, 
the plants produce branches near their base ; 
and these branches may, with considerable 
care, in placing them under the most favour- 
able circumstances, be preserved through the 
winter, so as to perpetuate the species. This, 
however, is a precarious matter. 
The only way of bringing this species 
under cultivation, will be by inducing it to 
mature its seeds, and if this can be done, it 
may be continued in cultivation, though pro- 
bably it will always rank amongst the shy 
growers. The manner of procedure will be 
thus : — Sow the seeds in sandy peat soil, not 
too much smoothed on the surface ; the lower 
stratum may be potsherds, and on this coarse 
turfy peat, to act as conductors of moisture 
from below. Scatter the seeds thinly over 
the surface of the sandy peat, and leave them 
with no other covering than will be given to 
them by gently striking the bottom of the pot 
on the potting bench. The early spring 
should be chosen for sowing. As the plants 
require stove heat, the pots may be set in a 
moist warm part of the stove, and in order to 
keep the soil moist without pouring any water 
over the minute seeds, the pots should be set 
into pans supplied more or less with water, 
and a flat piece of glass laid over the pots till 
germination commences, when it may be re- 
moved. The seeds must not be continually 
wet at any period, but only kept from getting 
dry by these means. Like other delicate 
annuals, the young plants must be potted off 
very carefully, as soon as they are large 
enough to handle, first into the smallest pots 
singly, and then shifted on into larger pots as 
they increase in size. Five-inch pots are 
probably large enough under any circum- 
stances for tlie blooming plants. Peat-soil 
should be used, employing it in turfy lumps, 
so that it may be always open, and not liable 
to be stagnated with water ; for though they 
require to be kept moist, yet stagnant water 
is fatal to them, 
RAISING SEEDLING FLOWERS. 
There is a singular indisposition among the 
most enthusiastic growers to the raising of seed- 
lings which require many years to develop 
their beauties or novelties, as the case may be. 
The very thought that a tulip will require upon 
an average five or six years to bloom, and per- 
haps as many more before it breaks into its 
proper colours, has deterred hundreds of ex- 
cellent growers from sowing seed at all ; and 
perhaps the fact that seedlings could be pur- 
chased old enough to bloom, and that had 
bloomed, and therefore seven years old, has 
still more excited an unwillingness to undergo 
the seven years' probation of taking up and 
replanting little bulbs. Yet how soon do a 
few years pass away, and how naturally do 
we reproach ourselves for losing the oppor- 
tunities! It is a sad mistake, but having 
made it ourselves, we are the better able to 
show what poor satisfaction it is to deplore a 
neglect that prevented an advance in the 
qualities of the flower : who knows but we 
might have raised tulips as much better than 
those we have, as they are superior to the 
commoner ones that we possessed before ? Be- 
sides, the best proof we can give of our folly 
in neglecting it while young, is the fact that 
we began it twenty years later than we ought 
to have done, and we believe hundreds are 
doing the same thing. We desire to see the 
tulip above all flowers advance nearer to per- 
fection, for they lag behind sadly ; we want 
also to see the culture better understood ; the 
facts connected with their progress better 
accounted for; and nothing will tend more to 
accomplish these things than the watching 
them through all their stages of progress from 
the seed upwards, by all those who are rais- 
ing seedlings. But there are other flowers 
as little encouraged as the tulip, although of 
much more encouraging length of imper- 
fection. The auricula is bloomed often in 
two years, always in three, from the sowing, 
yet there is a very slow progress, during 
which time the greatest attention is required, 
and this perhaps induces many to neglect 
sowing. But the fact is, a man only wants the 
courage to begin. Every year adds to the 
interest of his task ; every variety of foliage 
engages his attention, and feeds his hopes, 
and all the delight he takes when once fairly 
set to work, comes upon him unexpectedly. 
Nobody who has not raised seedlings can 
form the least conception of the interest ex- 
cited by the pursuit, and therefore everybody 
who loves a good flower ought to save his 
best seed and sow it. Why are so many 
sowing dahlia and pansy seed ? Because they 
so soon reward them with the result, be that 
result good, bad, or indifferent ; but those 
who are deterred by the length of time that 
elapses before a tulip or an auricula comes to 
perfection, should recollect that if they follow 
up the task annually, they have a succession 
of seven or of three-year-old stuff, to gratify 
their love of novelty, or to disappoint their 
hopes, and that therefore the excitement is 
then continual year by year. Everybody who 
delights in a good flower, is bound, in our 
opinion, to do his best towards improving it, and 
we hope none will neglect to raise seedlings. 
