13-1 
FLORISTS FLOWERS. 
powder all over the upper crown of the pistil. 
This done, remove the anthers from the one 
impregnated, and apply them to another kind; 
and so, if you please, you may go the whole 
round of the flowers, changing them in various 
directions, and leaving all of them without 
stamens. It will soon he seen which have 
taken and which have not, hy the decay of 
the petals and the swelling of the pods. Now 
let them take their chance, for as soon as the 
operation is performed and impregnation per- 
fected, they should have all the weather. Here 
they may remain till the stem turns yellow, 
when the pod having got all it wants from the 
plant, may be gathered, laid in the sun on 
separate papers to dry, and then be hung up 
with their pods in a paper bag, in case they 
should split. Now supposing this seed, or any 
one or two pods of it, perfect itself well, a 
hundred grains of it would be worth a peck 
saved in a garden where a general collection 
is grown ; and the chances are, that they 
break into varieties sooner, and some, bloom 
variegated from the first. But this is not all ; 
you are not to wait till they break before you 
discard the worst. Sow your seed in pans or 
boxes of loam and leaf mould about November, 
and put them in a cold frame, where they will 
get no frost, and can have both sun and air. 
They must never get dry after they are sown, 
and must be just covered with the soil and no 
more ; at the same time they must not be wet, 
because they would in all probability rot. In 
the spring they will come up like young onions, 
and must be occasionally refreshed with water, 
air, and sun, except when very hot ; in this 
way they will grow pretty fast through the 
spring, and die down about June or July. 
The little bulbs will be found the size of peas. 
They may be kept in a dry place till the end 
of September or the beginning of October. 
They may then be planted in a prepared bed 
of the same stuff, made inside a common 
garden frame, the mould being filled in to 
within four inches of the light, the bed being 
sloped like the edge of the frame ; here they 
may be planted in drills an inch deep, two 
inches apart in the drill, and three inches from 
drill to drill. Give air and rain when the 
weather is mild \ protect well against frost, for 
it would do mischief with such small bulbs. 
They will be up early in the year, and you 
must then be doubly careful of the protection 
against hard weather ; they cannot have too 
much air when it is mild. In this way they 
will go through another growth, and when the 
leaves '"have quite died down, they may be 
once more taken up. This second season you 
will find to some of the bulbs small offsets ; 
wherever this is the case, put each, with its 
offset, in a bag. So also you must whenever 
you find one with what is called a drop root. 
that is, one root below the other ; a very com- 
mon case in seedlings. The next year you 
may prepare your bed in the open ground, 
and plant each sort three inches deep, and the 
same distance apart in the rows, across the 
bed, and have the rows six inches apart, that 
they may be easily cleared of weeds ; when 
you come to the bulbs which have offsets, you 
must put them close together, and increase 
the distance to four inches, to prevent mis- 
takes in the taking up. This may be hooped 
over very shallow, for the nearer a cover is to 
the ground, the warmer is the air kept. The 
object of this is to cover against frost. They 
may have all the rains after February, but 
still no frost. In the summer, when the foliage 
is once more dead, they may be taken up with 
the same precaution as regards the offsets and 
sunk roots, for many will be found to throw 
down another root, or to generate an upper 
one on the surface, or near it. The object of 
keeping every bulb's offsets to itself is, that 
when the old one blooms, you may calculate 
on how many of the sort you have to keep or 
throw away, as the case may be. The fourth 
season plant them out of doors in the same kind 
of soil, and six inches apart all over, still keep- 
ing the bulbs with their offsets in the same hole. 
This fourth year many will bloom, therefore 
the covering against frost, and all the proper 
care must be observed. The fifth year all will 
bloom, and as they bloom, throw away everyone 
that has a foul bottom, all that have narrow, 
thin, or pointed petals, and throw all their 
offsets away with them ; do not allow a badly 
formed Tulip to remain, if the colours be ever 
so good, for we have already many fine colours 
and bad forms, while the Tulips which are alone 
to be desired, are those which are improve- 
ments. When seedlings first bloom, the ma- 
jority come of a self colour everywhere but 
the bottom, which should be pure white or 
yellow, though if all of one shade, any colour 
between white and yellow is sufferable, and 
indeed, in some cases novel and handsome in 
a bed. It would soon be seen how very much 
superior would be seedlings raised under such 
circumstances, compared with those raised 
from, no matter how good, a flower among a 
general collection. Such is the disposition of 
the Tulip to degenerate to foul bottoms, pointed 
petals, thin petals, narrow petals, and long 
cups, that even with all your care you may 
have to discard three-fourths of your seed- 
lings when they first bloom ; for you should 
not save one of an inferior form, or with one 
of the faults I have mentioned. Your seed- 
lings thus reduced in number, (for you throw 
away all the offsets, as well as the large roots of 
those that are good for nothing.) may be planted 
outfromyear to year, keeping each sort distinct, 
using by no means starveling sorts of com- 
