IMPROVEMENT OF FLORISTS FLOWERS. 
170 
ing. Having selected your sorts, make your 
memorandum for purchase next year ; or if 
there are the proper sorts to be had in pots, 
not yet opened, they may be purchased at 
once, and thus treated. They cannot be 
planted out in the ground, for the frost would 
injure the flower; but they may be carefully 
shifted into pots a size larger, and well watered, 
keeping them in the green-house or in a cool 
room, where the windows can be opened for 
the sake of air, whenever the weather will 
permit, and for the purpose of preventing 
them from being drawn up. It must be re- 
membered, however, that all this is only for 
the chance of a few seeds, for the only way to 
depend on Hyacinths for seed, in a general 
way, is to plant them in November, out of 
doors, and let them have all the weather, being 
particular that there are no other near them, 
nor in the same garden. I have seen a bed of 
some hundreds growing in the open air, and 
nearly four out of five seeding all through the 
bed ; but as it was a general collection of all 
the sorts on sale, the seeds produced nothing 
so good as the best of the originals, so that a 
large quantity of seedlings, to the number of 
many hundreds, were, (except in two or three 
distinct colours there was novelty,) only fit 
for common border flowers, and not half so 
good as the ordinary Dutch mixtures. If by 
giving plenty of air and sun, and proper 
moisture, they happen to seed this spring, so 
much the better; they will not ripen, perhaps, 
till June, and whether they do or do not this 
year, you will at least be better acquainted 
with the flowers and their properties by the 
next, when they may be bought and planted 
at the proper time. Presuming, however, 
that you have the seed saved, proceed in 
every way precisely the same as I have 
recommended for tulips; sow at the same 
time and in the same manner, as well as in 
the same compost ; take up the bulbs by the 
same rule, replant them in all respects alike, 
and when they first throw up bloom-buds, 
which will be very weakly, pick off all but the 
top bud, for the root must not be weakened 
by flowers until it has acquired almost the 
full size of those you buy at the seed shops ; 
when, however, you see a handsome spike 
thrown up, with the buds pretty numerous 
and close, it will be well to let that spike 
bloom, and according to its quality you must 
decide upon whether you increase it all you 
can, and give it a name, or use it, or give it 
away as a border flower. By the time the 
Hyacinth blooms strong, there may be several 
offsets ; these I presume to have been saved, 
as in the case of tulips, so that they may share 
the fate of the parent bulb, whether it be for 
good or evil. The Hyacinth seldom blooms 
strongly two years running ; those we buy at 
the shops have been nursed by the Dutch 
growers from offsets in the Avay I mention ; 
they are not allowed to bloom more than one 
of' their buds until they have acquired a 
marketable size, and then they are taken for 
sale. 80 every offset of the flowers or bloom in 
London might be nursed, if the idle florists of 
this metropolis paid proper attention, but we 
bloom them in water, force them in heat, and 
do every thing to weaken them, and at once 
conclude that they are done for. However, 
I am not upon the general culture of the Hya- 
cinth now; I should say, that in the course of 
blooming seedlings raised from seeds produced 
by the best flowers only, and far away from 
any common ones, some will be found as good 
as the present, but of a new colour ; others 
will be occasionally found better in form than 
the best of those they are saved from, and in 
either case it would be right to save them 
with all their offsets, to be named and grown 
for their improved character or novelty. The 
practice of crossing flowers artificially may be 
followed, and though I have not mentioned it 
with this flower, it must always be noticed 
that seed can only be saved from flowers which 
have all the organs of generation. If any 
subject, like the stock or the wallflower, 
which possess neither seed-vessel nor stamens 
in their double state, were grown by thousands, 
and a single stock planted among them, it 
would not yield a single seed more likely to 
produce a double one than if it had been 
grown a mile from the mass by which it was 
surrounded ; but where flowers are semi- 
double, and have the organs of generation, 
they may take their chances, if none but good 
ones are together. Those, however, who de- 
sire to impregnate one with another particular 
kind, must use the means according to the 
subject. "When you can get at the pollen no 
other way, you must use a camel's hair pencil, 
which you thrust in among the powder, and 
the pencil will come out with the pollen 
attached to it ; this then applied to the seed- 
vessel, or rather the pistil of the other flower, 
will, if it be in pi*oper condition, leave some of 
the powder on it ; nevertheless I repeat, that 
if there be none but good sorts placed to- 
gether, the crosses will be more varied, and 
yield quite as good viirieties. The chief art 
in raising the Hyacinth consists in removing 
the buds to prevent blooming, excepting one 
pip near the top of the spike, which the Dutch 
people fancy is necessary to draw the sap up 
the stem, to prevent that hasty decay whiclr 
will sometimes take place when there is 
nothing to require it, and which often ends 
in rot. 
THE AURICULA. 
The Auricula shall be the next flower on 
which I shall endeavour to offer a few hints, 
q2 
