THE CULTURE OF THE NEAPOLITAN VIOLET. 
135 
post, but never using dung; a florist's flower, 
no matter what its character, is better grown 
in rich loam and leaf mould than anything else 
that can be found, and next to that cow-dung, 
which when reduced to mould is very nearly 
of the same nature, as the animal lives almost 
entirely on green vegetable food; and indeed 
the only cow-dung that ever should be de- 
pended on, should be gathered up from pas- 
tures where they feed, and not be had from 
the cow-yard; all the dressing therefore that 
the soil for Tulips requires is leaf mould. 
These selfs or seedlings should consequently be 
planted from year to year with the same care 
as broke flowers, and they will mature them- 
selves, and break into colours from time to 
time. When you have to look chiefly to the 
colours, you may have them break into fine, 
well-marked flowers, with the six petals 
nearly alike, but they may also break into 
an irregularly marked flower, blotched or 
patched, and defective in all respects as to 
the marking. If, however, the bottom be 
clean and pure, without a stain, and any part 
of any one petal be cleanly marked, do not 
throw away that flower, for in our best beds 
so many splendid varieties occasionally bloom 
foul, that we might throw away whole col- 
lections; when, therefore, you see one kind 
breaking imperfectly, merely plant that sort 
the next year in a row by itself, as a partly 
broke variety, and do the same by all others 
that so break imperfectly; you will doubtless 
be rewarded by an occasional fine flower, that 
will be identified with your name, as Poly- 
phemus, the best Bizarre we have, is with that 
of Mr. Lawrence, and none can desire higher 
fame as a florist; but if you follow my advice 
in the saving of the seed, you will be more 
likely to produce a number of fine new flowers, 
than he was to produce that one, because Mr. 
Lawrence had thousands of flowers growing, 
as he had every variety he could obtain, until 
he had proved them not worth the trouble; 
his thousands of seedlings were raised under 
the disadvantage I have mentioned, and against 
which I would have you guard; the disadvan- 
tage of the very first flowers being inoculated 
by bad ones, and thus reducing your chance 
of an improvement to one in ten thousand, 
instead of one in a hundred. I have now 
given you a few hints founded upon practice 
and close observation. I may mention two 
or three circumstances to illustrate the ob- 
servation. I once saw nearly three hundred 
seedlings from a Charbonnier noir, without 
one clean bottom; more than six hundred 
from a Siam, which had but six clean flowers, 
and those very poor, and in both cases there 
were Roses, Byblomens and Bizarres; though 
saved in the first instance from a Bizarre, and 
in the second from a Byblomen. And not 
many years since I saw a quantity of seedlings, 
said to be from Captain Lampson, and sold 
at the mart as such, and not one turned out 
clean, although many were enough like the 
alleged parent, both in growth and flower, 
to induce me to think the parentage was 
properly described. I mention these things 
to show, that by saving from good flowers 
you have done nothing towards obtaining an 
improvement, unless you pi'event any but 
good flowers from inoculating the parent. 
So much has been written and said of the 
Tulip by persons wholly ignorant of its nature, 
that I can hardly abstain from saying a word or 
two on its general culture. It is so necessary 
to have clean loam, free from grub, wire- 
worm, or other pests, that you cannot be too 
particular in the selection; but it is an ab- 
surdity to suppose that the Tulip requires 
poor soil; on the contrary, it would grow in 
the highest perfection in half good and rather 
sandy loam, and half leaf mould. Perhaps 
the finest bed I ever saw, and I bloomed it 
myself, was grown in mould formed of turfs 
cut for making a lawn, which turfs had been 
rotting for two years in a heap, and I con- 
sider that the rotted grass and its roots formed 
about one-half, and the soil with them formed 
the other half; these turfs were rotted enough 
the first year, but in chopping them down I 
found many wire worms, and probably they were 
turned over a dozen times by boys, to whom 
I paid a halfpenny a dozen the first time or 
two, and after then a penny, and the last time 
I believe I went so far as to promise sixpence 
each if they could find any more. This stuff 
proved the best I ever knew for the growth 
of the Tulip, and I never saw a cleaner, finer 
growth, nor a much cleaner general bloom 
than was produced in that stuff. Nobody, 
however, can deny that it was exceedingly 
rich; and though a Tulip, like many other 
flowers, does not like raw dung, it is against 
all rules and practice among good growers to 
starve this queen of flowers. Empirics have 
written all sorts of nonsense about breaking 
Tulips; I say, grow them well and they will 
break themselves. F. H. S. 
ON THE CULTURE OF THE NEAPOLITAN 
VIOLET. 
This lovely, humble little plant, possessing, 
as it does, a property which makes it a very 
great favourite of every admirer of Flora, is 
one that ought to have more attention devoted 
to it than it has. Seeing an inquiry as to the 
best mode for forcing the same, I beg to tender 
the following remarks : — One of the prin- 
cipal objects to ensure ultimate success, is to 
provide good strong healthy plants, for plant- 
ing at the proper season ; thus I shall briefly 
