THE CHRYSANTHEMUM, AND ITS CULTURE. 
BY GEORGE GLENNY, F.H.S. 
This plant derives its chief attraction from 
the particular season in which it blooms. It 
is showy and varied, but it has neither ele- 
gance of habit, nor symmetry of form, nor 
fragrance to recommend it. The most remark- 
able of the flowers are notorious for their de- 
formity, and although we have now British 
seedling varieties coming something nearer to 
a proper standard, we are far from attaining 
what must be the character of the plant and 
flower before it can be ranked among the bet- 
ter class of Florists' flowers. 
Although a Chinese plant, our English 
varieties will soon outnumber and excel the 
original, and it will be, like the Camellia 
japonica, essentially English, or, at least, 
European, before many years pass over our 
heads. The plants are valuable as out-of- 
door ornaments in mild autumns, for they suc- 
ceed the dahlia ; and although a very severe 
frost will destroy foliage and flowers, they 
will live through a frost which will cut off the 
dahlia past recovery. They are, strictly speak- 
ing, half-hardy, but their beauty is frequently 
spoiled just as they are commencing their 
bloom. The plants, if grown in the ordinary 
way, are too tall to be handsome, and the 
lower leaves wither and turn brown before 
the blooms come to perfection, even when the 
season is suitable. This can only be coun- 
teracted by means of particular culture, and 
49. 
we can only accomplish an improvement in 
the habit by carefully counteracting the 
general tendency of the plant to grow lanky 
and talh In herbaceous borders, where the 
subjects are allowed to spread and throw up 
annually large bundles of stems, and where 
thegeneral collection of masses bloom yearafter 
year in large heads, the appearance of the 
Chrysanthemum is very showy ; and in such 
places they are undisturbed three or four years 
together ; but this can be hardly called culti- 
vation, — a hundred subjects that make very 
striking flowers under high culture, are but 
rough, though showy masses of bloom, when 
allowed to take their own choice. The carna- 
tion, pink, picotee, auricula, polyanthus, 
primrose, hyacinth, tulip, narcissus, and many 
other subjects which are noble under rich 
and judicious growth, spread and become 
large masses when left a few seasons, and, how- 
ever pretty in these wilderness-like borders, 
possess no claims to notice for their individual 
flowers, nor for the form of their plants ; yet, 
propagated yearly, or separated every season, 
or dug up and replanted properly and perio- 
dically, they preserve a character which is as 
superior as it is unlike the diminutive blos- 
soms that come in hundreds. The Chrys- 
anthemum, then, has to be looked upon in 
different stations ; first, as a perennial herba- 
ceous plant, in common borders, growing in 
