282 JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. t September 23 , isso. 
obtained, the weather, and other circumstances.—A Kitchen 
Gardener. 
LOBELIAS. 
Blue and other dwarf Lobelias are such general favourites 
that no flower garden, however small, can be satisfactorily fur¬ 
nished without them. As edgings for beds, lines, vases, and 
window boxes they are indispensable, while a patch here and 
there near the front of a mixed border not only does not appear 
out of place, but imparts cheerfulness and completeness to the 
general arrangement. The present is the period for providing a 
stock of these attractive flowers ; and fortunately the work is easy, 
and the necessary plants, even for a very large garden, occupy but 
little room during winter, and require little heat. A shelf near 
the glass in a light greenhouse is the only convenience required, 
while the attention the plants need to preserve them is of the 
slightest. 
It is generally conceded that the plants are best propagated by 
cuttings ; indeed this, or divisions of some of the dense growers, 
are the only modes of keeping the varieties true. When, however, 
a large number of Lobelias are required for long lines in the front 
of shrubbery borders or for mixed beds, raising the plants from 
seed is the quickest, easiest, and most convenient mode, while the 
results are usually satisfactory. For panels and lines, where great 
exactitude in the heights and habits of the plants is important, 
seedlings must not be relied on, for even if the seed has been 
saved from plants raised from cuttings there will be several plants 
varying more or less from the original, and which would mar the 
effect of a small geometrical arrangement; but this little diversity 
is not in the slightest degree obtrusive in the long lines above 
noticed, and in mixed borders. 
As is generally understood plants raised from cuttings are the 
best from which to save seed, for there is then less deviation in 
the habits and colours of the plants resultant than of those the 
produce of seed saved indiscriminately from seedling plants. 
Yet if seed is saved from seedling plants discriminately instead 
of indiscriminately a valuable strain of Lobelias may be per¬ 
petuated. For seed-raising a row of plants should be grown in a 
warm, sunny, and rather dry position, and as soon as the plants 
flower all that are faulty in habit or colour should be pulled up, 
and those remaining will be almost if not quite equal as parents 
to plants raised from cuttings. I can point in proof of this 
assertion to some hundreds of yards of Lobelias, the plants of 
which have been thus perpetuated by seed for more than twenty 
years, and with the display no fault can be found, for the lines 
are true, level, and uniform in colour. 
For general purposes in long borders and large beds the old 
Lobelia Erinus speciosa is not yet surpassed, if equalled. For 
raising plants that will be of good size in May the seed is usually 
sown in February, the plants being grown on in heat for two 
months, then duly hardened off. It is, however, often much 
better to sow the seed in September, wintering the plants in the 
seed pans or boxes on a greenhouse shelf. They there grow 
steadily all the winter, are hardy in character, and ready for 
pricking off in the earliest days of spring. This is the plan par 
excellence for amateurs who only possess a greenhouse, with per¬ 
haps a frame or two to aid them in preparing plants for their 
flower gardens. The seed should be now sown without a day’s 
unnecessary delay in pans or boxes of rich light soil, which must 
be kept constantly moist. A cool, moist, shaded frame is a suit¬ 
able position for raising the seedlings. 
When the stock of Lobelias is raised from cuttings there are 
three modes in which stock plants are provided :—1, By potting a 
few small plants in the spring and plunging them in ashes in the 
open ground, cutting off the flowers two or three times during the 
summer to induce a mass of healthy growth. These plants, if 
grown in 5-inch pots aud shifted in February into pots a size or 
two larger, produce an abundance of fine cuttings for propagating 
purposes. If all the cuttings are not wanted the plants flower 
profusely in May, and are most valuable for conservatory decora¬ 
tion. 2, By taking cuttings now from the base of the plants, 
inserting them in sandy soil, and striking in a close frame. These 
pots of young plants placed in heat in spring afford a plentiful 
supply of fine cuttings. It is, however, sometimes difficult to find 
good cuttings now for insertion, and the best mode of insuring 
them is by partially cutting down a portion of the plants in 
August. 3, By taking up a few old plants from the beds in the 
autumn and establishing them in pots. For this purpose, it 
may be added, the plants are much better if the flowering parts 
are cut off a month before the plants are potted. They must be 
potted in light soil to induce quick root-action, and no position 
is better for them than the north side of a wall in the open air 
until frost approaches, when they must be placed in a cold frame, 
from thence when severe weather is imminent transferred to the 
greenhouse. These modes of establishing stock plants apply to 
all the free yet compact forms of the Erinus type, by whatever 
names they are known and of whatever colour are the flowers. 
The dwarf or pumila section may be treated differently. The 
plants of this type, being of a dense cushion-like habit of growth, 
produce roots from the stems most freely during moist weather in 
autumn. If rooted slips or tufts are taken off, severing all the 
flowers from them, and these rooted portions are planted an inch 
apart in boxes of light sandy soil and placed in a close frame, the 
plants are soon established and form a compact surface of healthy 
growth. These boxes, wintered like the seedlings on a shelf in a 
light house, afford in the spring further slips in great numbers, or 
thousands of cuttings. For geometrical designs, panels, and low 
edgings the variety pumila grandiflora is not yet surpassed for 
general usefulness, and it ought not to be hastily set aside in 
favour of newer varieties with high recommendations attached, 
no doubt in good faith, by the vendors of plants. The improved 
form pumila magnifica has larger flowers, but the plant is less 
dwarf ; it makes a beautiful edging to a moderate-sized bed, and 
is fine for pots. It may be grown in addition to, but cannot be 
safely substituted for, the former. 
Of the somewhat stronger yet compact-growing varieties for 
general purposes, lines and edgings, the following are among the 
most useful. As an edging for a large bed the true speciosa from 
cuttings is one of the best, and from seed it makes a fine second 
row plant for a long border. Much dwarfer, rich in colour, and 
floriferous is the popular variety Brighton ; it is excellent for 
edgings, close, dense, and bright. Ebor is darker and very 
effective. Blue Gem is paler, indeed is the purest blue of all. 
Lustrous has a distinct white eye ; and Mazarine Gem is of the 
same type, both having a pleasing appearance in lines or masses. 
The new variety Blue Beard I have only tested on a small scale ; 
it is highly promising and will be increased. Of the pink 
varieties Omen is still by far the best I have grown for a close 
line ; it is very distinct, and indispensable to every well-furnished 
flower garden. The variety with what a correspondent has well 
described as the “funny name” of “What’s That” is perhaps a 
trifle better in colour, but more straggling in habit, and will not 
drive Omen out of the garden. Of the silvery lilac forms Paxtoni, 
though still good, and coming fairly true from seed, making spark¬ 
ling edgings, is superseded by Lady Macdonald and Dixon’s Gem, 
which are charming when well grown in pots. One of the most 
useful whites is Princess of Wales, which is good in habit, pure, 
and free. When in good condition the double Lobelias are effec¬ 
tive in pots and window boxes, but as edging plants they do not 
last sufficiently long in flower. Of the new yellow variety Lutea 
I can only say it is novel. Yellow it undoubtedly is, but the habit 
is loose and the flowers few ; it will never make a good edging 
plant, and its proper place is, I think, a sunny rockery. It is so 
dissimilar from the ordinary type of bedding Lobelias as to make 
one wonder that it is included in the genus, and I shall be glad to 
see the result of the first cross that has been effected between this 
and one of the blue varieties above noticed. If my head does not 
ache before that is accomplished I fancy I shall not be troubled 
with that complaint for a year or two. I may, however, be 
wrong ; we shall see. 
Those who wish for a stock of any varieties of Lobelias that 
they do not possess should purchase plants now. They are 
generally kept in pots by those who grow them largely for sale, 
and such of these plants kept through the winter, potted and 
grown on in heat in early spring, may be increased a hundred¬ 
fold by the 1st of May.— A Flower Garden Foreman. 
THE EFFECTS OF ELECTRICITY ON VEGETATION. 
Upon page 265 Mr. Bridgman gives an extraordinary account 
of electrical influence upon plants, and were it not for the circum¬ 
stantiality of the details I should have entertained grave doubts 
as to its accuracy. But the particulars of the experiments are so 
clearly stated that there can be no question as to the facts, though 
the causes are by no means so evident as are supposed. The 
first statement concerning the Fern case is the most remarkable. 
All the effects described may have been produced, but that they 
were the results of electrical action is open to doubt. The whole 
theory of galvanic electricity rests upon the necessity of two 
metals being in actual contact or connected by means of wire, 
the metals employed being of dissimilar constitution—that is, one 
must readily combine with the oxygen of acids, and the other 
resist that action. The more marked are these differences the 
better the battery, and the greater the intensity and quantity of 
the electricity produced. The metal which undergoes decomposi¬ 
tion is termed the positive pole, and the unaffected metal is known 
