106 JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. [ August 3, 1882. 
not?, Myosotis versicolor, is pale yellow when it first opens, but as 
it grows older it becomes faintly pinkish, and ends by being blue 
like the others of its race. Now, this sort of colour-change is by no 
means uncommon, and in almost all known cases it is always in the 
same direction, from yellow or white, through pink, orange, or red, 
to purple or blue. The Common Virginia Stock of our gardens (Mal- 
colmia) often opens of a pale yellowish green, then becomes faintly 
pink ; afterwards deepens into bright red, and fades away at last into 
mauve or blue. Fritz Muller noticed in South America a Lantana, 
which is yellow on its first day, orange on the second, and purple on 
the third. The whole family of Boraginacese begin by being pink, and 
end by being blue. In all these and many other cases the general 
direction of the changes is the same. They are usually set down as 
due to varying degrees of oxidation in the pigmentary matter.” 
SEEDLING CARNATIONS AND PICOTEES. 
The above are indispensable in all gardens where quantities of 
flowers are in daily request for cutting. No matter at what season 
of the year their blooms are produced, they are always welcome and 
more eagerly sought after than those of any other hardy plants, the 
Bose excepted. This is the case whether the plants are grown in 
pots and forced into bloom during winter and spring, or when 
flowering outside naturally. Beds filled with Carnations, either 
of one colour or a number of varieties together, are useful and 
attractive, and these plants when in flower have a gay appearance 
that would, independently of their fragrance, commend them to all. 
When planting them in beds or borders no better position can be 
chosen than amongst dwarf Boses. The latter should be planted 
sufficiently far apart that the Carnations or Picotees can be 
planted alternately with them. For example, a bed of Boses in 
three rows can have a row of Carnations planted on each side of 
the centre line of Boses. A bed of La France Boses with any dark- 
flowered Carnation will be charming through the whole season. 
I do not think it is generally known that these plants thrive 
admirably in the smoky neighbourhood of towns. Here they 
grow luxuriantly, especially seedlings, although the air is con¬ 
taminated with chemical vapours. Whatever florists may urge 
in favour of named varieties, they are not so useful as seedlings. 
The beauty of form and markings of many of the flowers of the 
named kinds are all that can be desired, but many of them are 
bad growers and only produce a few flowers, which are soon over. 
Many named kinds do not produce more than a dozen flowers 
from a single plant, which are all past in a few weeks, especially 
if the weather is hot and dry. Such Carnations and Picotees are 
but little use for the gardeners who require a continuous supply 
either for packing or filling vases at home. Perpetual seedlings 
of both Carnations and Picotees should be grown for this purpose ; 
they are robust in habit, and profuse and continuous flowerers ; in 
fact many of them commence flowering before the named kinds, 
and produce abundance until stopped by frost. I have at the 
present time plants with over two hundred flowers and buds upon 
them, and these from single plants layered in August last. These 
seedlings do not only produce a few flowering stems from the 
centre early in the season, but continue to produce in rapid suc¬ 
cession flowering shoots from the base. Some of these attain a 
height of 3 feet 6 inches to 4 feet in length, and form strong 
lateral shoots nearly the whole of that length. 
Last August I had layered a number of late-flowering shoots 
into fi-inch pots, the pots being plunged into the soil until the 
plants were well rooted, which were severed from the parents 
just before the approach of frost and placed under cover. 
Quantities of blooms were produced from these plants during the 
winter, and I intend to adopt this practice on a much larger 
scale, and do not doubt a succession of flowers will be produced 
through the whole winter and spring. 
The present is a good time to sow seed for obtaining a stock, 
but the sooner it is done the better. If sowing is delayed until 
spring many of the plants raised will not flower the same season. 
This entails labour in carrying out the operation of layering before 
there is any chance of determining whether the plants will have 
single or double flowers ; but when sown now, or better still if 
sown about the month of June, and established and wintered in 
3-inch pots, and then the whole planted out in nursery beds in 
early spring, they will flower towards the end of July, the best 
can then be layered and the worthless ones thrown away. If the 
seedling plants are moderately strong from seed sown during the 
month of June 1 do not hesitate to plant them out in early 
autumn, as these are perfectly hardy, and satisfactory results may 
be relied upon ; but when sown late the young plants during 
winter should have the protection of a cold frame, or better still 
if they can have a position where they can grow slowly during 
the winter, for the greater progress they make the earlier they 
will flower the following season. Some of the seedlings may have 
single flowers. The showiest of these make grand border plants ; I 
but I have always been fortunate, and always had a greater per¬ 
centage of double than single flowers, and many of them of 
superior quality. 
The seed should be sown in pans, using a light compost of loam, 
leaf soil, and sand. The seed must only be lightly covered and 
then well watered with a fine-rose can. The pan may be placed 
in heat and covered with glass until the seed germinates. It is a 
good plan to cover the glass with moss until the seedlings appear, [ 
when it must at once be removed and light and air gradually 
admitted to the young plants. The only object in raising them 
under glass or placing the seed in heat is to bring on the plants 
more rapidly than if the pans or boxes in which the seed is sown 
was placed in a shady place outside. Amateurs having neither 
greenhouses or frames may be very successful in adopting the 
latter method. If the glass is kept close over the plants after the 
seedlings appear they are liable to suffer from damp. When 
large enough the young plants should be potted singly in the 
sized pots already named, which is preferable to pricking them 
(tf into other pans or boxes. After potting, and as soon as root- 
action has fairly commenced, they should have a cooler position, 
where more ventilation can be given, which will prevent them 
drawing up weakly. When well hardened the young plants can 
be plunged outside or planted out, but if small at the approach of 
cold weather it is best to keep them in frames. 
Those that have not raised seedling Carnations and Picotees for 
purposes of cutting, as well as the embellishment of beds and 
borders, and have hitherto relied upon named varieties, would 
not be disappointed with the result for the time and labour 
required in raising a stock of these useful plants from seed,— 
W. Baedney. 
THE INFLUENCE OF SOIL IN MATURING CROPS. 
It will be found that an abundance of manure will bring forward 
young Turnips, Carrots, Radishes, Cabbages, and weakly-growing 
but very early Potatoes, and many other vegetables ; but (and 
this is especially true in cold, wet, dull seasons) it has exactly the 
opposite effect on Peas, Cauliflowers, Strawberries, &c. Here the 
season has been such as is favourable to a great development of 
leaf, and the consequence is that Strawberries in thoroughly good 
soil have made such growth as has had the effect of hiding the 
enormous crops of fruit under a leafy screen, where the slugs can 
hide and feast unseen, and where the shade is such as causes the 
fruit to ripen very slowly indeed. None of our Strawberry plots 
are in really poor condition, but the poorest and oldest, though 
once far less promising, are much more satisfactory than are those 
younger and on better soil. Had the season been hot and dry the j 
opposite would have been the case ; but as it is, our earliest and 
best fruit have come from the plots where the soil is thinnest and 
the plants weakest. 
A foitnight before we had any Strawberries a market grower in 
the neighbourhood had plenty, and the variety was the same as 
our own earliest—namely, Vicomtesse Hericart de Thury ; but 
his were in poor soil, and the plants were making little growth— 
the fruit was being forwarded by starvation. 
It is the same with Peas. The earliest Peas here were from a 
row sown on rather poor soil. From this row two or three dishes 
were obtained before as many pods were filled on the bulk of the 
other batch, although the later ones were in a more favourable 
situation than the others. The only difference that could cause 
such a result was the extra manuring the later rows received, for 
they were sown in laud liberally manured and trenched for Straw¬ 
berries, which we expect to plant immediately. 
With our Cauliflowers it is the same. Even yet the Dwarf 
Erfurts that were kept over winter are hardly exhausted, but they 
are on the same soil as the Peas. Even now spring-sown Eclipse 
is plentiful, but the heads are only turning in from plants that 
from some cause or another have not grown very well. The 
stronger the plants the later is the produce, but in all cases is 
finer. The late heads of the Erfurt Cauliflower are quite out of 
character, they are so large. In the case of the Peas the later 
crops are also very heavy. 
Onions on moderately rich soil are growing fairly and promise 
a return of useful bulbs ; those on very rich soil are growing fast, 
but should the weather not become brighter, warmer, and drier, they 
will be so late as to be useless. It really is a question of earliness 
v. lateness, for a quantity that; were pushed forward in spring 
and transplanted in May, although growing strongly, are for 
the most part bulbing satisfactorily, some being now (July 21st) 
4 inches in diameter. But for the artificial forwarding it is 
doubtful if, in such a season, they would have bulbed at all; as 
