January 8, 1885. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
35 
impossible to prove degeneracy. From my experience I should say there 
is only about one-third which enter into gardening pursuits who are in 
every way calculated to become competent gardeners. I am an advocate 
for extreme kindness ia every reasonable way, and no gardener can do 
his young men a greater kindness than to wisely rule them against all 
degrading and loose practices, although it may appear somewhat opposed 
to their liberty sometimes. Different gardeners must have different ways 
or powers of ruling ; many not the best of gardeners are good or strict 
heads, and some excellent gardeners do not possess so much command. 
It does not follow, however, that the former actually teaches his men so 
much as the practical gardener. I have known gardeners so strict that 
the young men felt almost shut out from right of interest by being told to 
work and not think. Mr. Bardney suggests an improvement upon such a 
ridiculous command by teaching to both work and think.— Lathyrus. 
OLD TIMES AND NEW MODES OF GROWING THE 
CHRYSANTHEMUM. 
Since our reference to Mr. Beaton on page (5 last week we have been 
requested to publish what the “ Grand Old Gardener” said on the subject 
of flowering Chrysanthemums in summer, in reference to raising new 
varieties from sports and ripening seed in England. Under the above 
heading Mr. Beaton wrote as follows thirty years ago :— 
I shall first mention an ingenious experiment which I saw begun, 
under very favourable circumstances, in the summer of 1825, but the 
result has not yet been proved, although it might be proved in eighteen 
months. This experiment was tried on a new Chrysanthemum, and most 
of them were new at that day, in Edinburgh, and beyond it. However, 
all plants which were new and good were to be seen with Lady Gordon 
Cumming, at Altyre, sooner than anywhere else in those parts. She was 
fond of the sciences; a proficient in many branches of science herself; 
and her house and purse were always open to men of science, who were 
delighted to favour her, in return, with specimens and seeds from all parts 
of the world ; and from China, among the rest. Her garden was an 
experimental garden in a literal sense ; and she was the ruling power, the 
guide, and experimentalist in disguise. No one but her head gardener and 
one or two of the assistants knew that every experiment was proposed 
and the plan of carrying it out suggested by Lady Cumming. Great 
people appear greater when this trait in their character is understood. 
Lady Middleton proposed, suggested, and, with Sir William, settled before¬ 
hand, everything I did at Shrubland Park, and they’ gave me the credit of 
it, and wished the world to believe it due to me. How different from 
some who would be great. But I am not preaching a sermon ; I was only 
going to mention the ingenious experiment which Lady Cumming wished 
her gardener, Mr. Temple, to try in the summer of 1825, but some family 
arrangement called him away from the north ; and the first thing which 
his successor, Mr. McLean, from Lee’s nursery, did, was to upset all the 
experiments and plans of Mr. Temple; but he kept all the old garden 
bands till he learned to whistle the family tune, and he did well; but the 
ingenious experiment was forgotten from that day till one day last week, 
when it came into my head, no doubt on good purpose. If I had thought 
of it sooner, and had proved it, as I think it will be by someone else, it 
would make me feel proud of myself, and I ought to be thankful that I 
forgot it till now. 
At the beginning of September the plants were housed, and a few of 
them were put into the stove ; the extra length caused by forcing was 
considered no detriment then, and we had them “ in ” by the beginning of 
October. As soon as they were out of bloom we did not turn them aside 
as we do now-a-days, but rather put them into the Pine stoves, on the side 
curbs, without cutting them down, except a little at the top with the dead 
flowers. The Chrysanthemum will stand the heat of the stove in winter, 
and seems to like it; the tall stems never seem to want cutting down— 
at least ours did not—and the suckers were pulled off as fast as they 
appeared, and cuttings were then made of the upper branches only ; about 
the end of March they were removed to the greenhouse, and they were 
planted out with the Dahlias, in the borders, in May, where they soon 
made great bushy plants as tall as Salvias. 
About this time it was rumoured that Chrysanthemums sported, both 
in China and England—-that is, that a branch here and there would 
occasionally give flowers of a different colour from the rest on the plant, 
and when cuttings were instantly made from the sporting branch the new 
colour would follow and become permanent. Now, this curious disposi¬ 
tion to sport was made the foundation of the ingenious experiment, which 
I want particularly to be settled next year, or the following year at the 
farthest. The particular experiment was tried on a sport, but I should 
think any kind would do ; at all events, the thing has not been proved 
either way. Tbe rationale of the plan was founded on the fact that a bud 
from a variegated Jasmine will cause all the green leaves to turn varie¬ 
gated als i; even if the variegated bud should die before all the leaves 
tinged with the matter which caused the change. To follow up this idea 
on a plant of Chrysanthemum, which was known to be naturally disposed 
to change, or sport, five or six different kinds were grafted on one such 
plant in May, and on side branches high up on an old stem which wintered 
in the stove; then, by thus compelling so many different kinds to circulate 
their juices in the body of a plant already noted for a sporting character, 
it was reasonably expected that the chances of inducing a still farther 
change from the normal type would be increased five or six fold, according 
to the number of different kinds grafted; but, as I have said already, the 
experiment was not completed, and the question remains open to this day, 
although I might have made a fortune by it long since. 
It remains for me now only to point the exneriment out to others, and 
in doing so there is a second experiment which I wish to connect with it, 
and one which is as likely as not to be of still greater use to British 
gardeners ; I mean that an attempt should be made to cause the Chrys¬ 
anthemum to seed with us as freely as the Dahlia ; and why not ? Our 
present plan of turning the plant into an annual is one great cause why 
it does not seed with us ; that cannot be gainsaid by anything we know of 
in physiology. A second cause of barrenness is, making cuttings from the 
suckers only. It stands to reason and science, if there is any d.fference 
between them, that the blood or sap in a sucker of any plant whatever is 
of the same degree, say, of maturity, as that in the branches in the upper 
parts of the same plant. There is not the smallest question about the 
very different degrees of strength, ripeness, development, or whatever we 
choose to call it, in the sap of a limb or branch, and the sap in a sucker 
fresh rising from the roots ; then, if age, firmness of wood, or ripeness 
and infirmity of constitution by age, accident, or by the hand of man, are 
less inimical to fruitfulness than youth, vigour, and bad blood in the veget¬ 
able kingdom, we have the two to choose from in the present system of 
propagating, and the mode of managing the Chrysanthemum, and in that 
which we followed in 1825. The inference is perfectly correct ; but the 
result remains to be proved. I have not the smallest doubt, in my own 
mind, but the present heads of Chrysanthemums may be kept alive and in 
good health, to bloom every year, as long as a Gooseberry top ; and I can 
conceive the possibility of some of these heads at least arriving at 
maturity when they may be as prone to seed in England as they are at 
present to throw up watery suckers, with which we are content to raise 
gaudy flowers from, and thus leaving the chance of good seedlings to 
foreign gardeners, under a better climate. The French, “ our allies,” 
were the first to find out the doubling propensity of Dahlias ; and the 
Italians were first on the list with Pompon Chrysanthemums at least; 
but who can say that we ourselves will not excel them both, and all the 
rest of them, if we but go the right way about it ? 
Do, or not do, the load was heavy upon me for some time, and 
I could not sleep comfortably under it. New Chrysanthemums we 
must have, some way or other; new shades and new shapes, and, as the 
old Roman said, “ if you do not find a better way than mine, use it until 
you do.” Save a few of your choicest kinds this winter in the stove, or 
anywhere else, from the frost; remove the suckers as fast as they come ; 
if the plants are 3 feet high, cut off 1 foot, and so on in proportion to 
other height; if there are many shoots, all the better; thin them as they 
do Raspberry stools ; three of the strongest keep in an 8-inch pot, and 
only four in the 11-inch size. I would not keep a larger size, and I would 
not disturb the roots for years, in case old roots, like old branches, may 
assist the plants to seed ; but in the way to that stage, take the chances 
of a sport, by grafting as many different kinds next May or June as you 
can stick on. Should no sports appear for the first two years nothing is 
lost; you have still two strings to your bow—the chance of sport and the 
sure way of bringing all the shafts into a seeding age and condition. 
Two birds were never killed with so little shot and powder and so good an 
aim. 
From 1816 to 1826 there was no flower half so popular in England as 
the Chrysanthemum. In the middle of this enthusiasm I took up the 
spade and the current notions of the time as matters of course ; and from 
1821 to 1851, when I had, perhaps, the be3t collection of them in the 
kingdom, every move about them was at my finger’s ends. 
The first of them that I saw in the open border wa3 the Early Blush, 
near Culloden, where the last battle was fought in the cause of the Pre¬ 
tender. In the autumn of 1826 four kinds of Chrysanthemum flowered 
against the wall of the Infirmary garden at Inverness, just above tide 
mark. About Forres, Elgin, and on to Gordon Castle, the early kinds 
from China flowered quite freely out of doors in those days ; but whether 
the new ones would do out so far north is more than I can tell; though I 
am quite sure that Pompons, which are a hardier race, would flower 
out of doors round Inverness just as well as about London. 
That they should grow in Amboyna, in Cochin-China, and in our 
own Pine stove in winter, without hurt or signs of “ drawing,” is a most 
remarkable fact in the history of herbaceous plants natives of temperate 
climes ; and I do not know of another such instance in the whole range of 
gardening. I have said already that without cutting them down after 
flowering we kept them over the winter on the kerbs of the Pine stove at 
Altyre, near Forres, when I was a lad, and they stood the heat as well 
as the Ixora or Pancratium ; but when I wrote that, two years since, I 
was not aware that the Chinese induced them to sport into varieties by 
grafting so many kinds on one plant, as then suggested, for the fulfilment 
of an old experiment which was begun at Altyre in 1825. Since then I 
have learned that some Chinese drawings in the possession of the Horti¬ 
cultural Society represent grafted plants of them, or rather plants with so 
many various colours on one head as could be had only by grafting. 
A gentleman in Northamptonshire keeps some of them in the stove 
every winter, on purpose to flower in the spring, as he told me him¬ 
self not three months since. Mr Cuthill of Camberwell bad a medal, 
some years since, from the Horticultural Society for a large plant of 
Chrysanthemums in full bloom in May ; and I see no reason whatever 
against a general system of having Chrysanthemums and Pompons in 
flower from the end of September to the middle of May, providing you 
have the necessary conveniences, and choose to go to the expense of such 
luxury. But what would you say to a bed of them planted out at the end 
of April to flower all the summer with the bedding plants ? Surely you 
would get seed enough then. 
Photographic Album.—W e have recently had an improved form of 
the Photogiaphic Album brought under our notice by Mr. Downes of 
