560 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ December 28, 168 . 
down in life in one of the two recognised and valued forms of 
marking known as “ feathered ” and “ flamed.” 
In the feathered flower the beautiful pencillings of colour are 
confined to the petal edges, the ground colour of white or yellow 
remaining spotlessly free. 
The flamed flower possesses the same rich unbroken feathering, 
but there is added, upward from the “ eye” of the flower and most 
solid at the base, a strong and flashing colour which forms the 
“ flame, ’ and with its sharp tongues leaps into the feathering. 
When there are several rich tints of cognate colour in the beam 
of the flame the effect is extremely rich. This brilliant combina¬ 
tion occurs in such finely flamed flowers as Willison’s Sir Joseph 
Paxton, Hardy’s Talisman, Barlow’s surpassing break of Polyphe¬ 
mus, Hardy’s Ajax, Storer’s Orion and Dr. Hardy, Martin’s Annie 
McGregor, Barlow’s Rose Celestial, and many others. 
As well-marked instances of how greatly the fertility of the 
breeder form may subside in a superlatively fine break, I may 
mention a feathered strain of Hepworth’s Lady May, which Mr. 
Barlow has had for twenty years, and of which he kindly gave me 
the second, and, so far, the only other bulb. Still more remarkable 
was our peerless Kate Connor, feathered, which we had between 
us for more than twenty years, and, up to the time of her acci¬ 
dental death in 1870, with never an offset at all. Kate is unat¬ 
tractive in the breeder form, and there has never been another such 
beauty in the family since. Nothing but the clumsy comparison 
of a sealing-wax scarlet on a pure white ground can describe the 
complexion of that feathered Kate. 
Where the analogy of the Tulip to the caterpillar does not hold 
good is that the flower in its transition has no state correspondent 
with the pupa or chrysalis of the insect ; none intermediate between 
its temporary and final form. If it but partially assume its matured 
state, either by confused markings or by not throwing the “ mother 
colour ’ off, it is but a “ bad break,” and would become the foundeu 
of an undecided and worthless strain ; though all its offsets, not 
born in the actual year of their parent’s fall, have their blood un¬ 
tainted of evil, and the one chance in their life still not marred. 
The late Dr. Hardy of Warrington, to whom we owe so much 
in the scientific literature of the Tulip, and also some grand varie¬ 
ties, used to say that when a seedling did not break in twenty years 
he threw it away as “ too hard.” Some are certainly most obsti¬ 
nately “solid,” and one that my father raised in 1862 has only 
broken for the first time in 1886 well flamed. 
Again, the insect has a definite time for its changes, but the 
Tulip none. An offset may “ break ” before its parent bulb, and 
live to see its great-great-grandmother a “ breeder ” still. Every 
break from the stock of any one breeder is a “ strain,” good or bad, 
of that variety ; and every worthy break should in common fairness 
be kept to the name of the flower of which it is a break. It 
is a different thing from the “ sport ” in a Carnation, which is 
always into another class, or in the Cfirysanthemum, where the 
sport colour makes a different flower of it. Breeder Tulips are 
judged and named when they first bloom as seedlings ; and it is 
very wrong and confusing to give, unless in honest ignorance, a 
new name to a fresh break of an old breeder From this cause a 
novice might buy Charmer, Mrs. Lomax, Mabel, and Pretty Jane, 
and find they were all but so many breaks of the same Rose breeder 
—one of Martin’s. The term “rectified” more particularly applies 
to the higher type of change—the “ feathered ” flower : higher 
because gentler, fairer, purer, rarer, and only not in disparagement 
of the perfectly “flamed” state, which is a greatly valued and 
magnificent type. 
There is no organic addition of new and more glorious parts in 
the rectified Tulip as in the perfected butterfly. Sometimes a 
flower looks of better shape in her rich court costume than in the 
pinafore petals of her younger years, when the old plain morning 
gown of the breeder petal vanishes entirely, and is replaced by that 
ground colour which may happen to be that of the eye or base of 
the flower, while the marking is something wonderfully new. When 
a flower breaks into colours duller or otherwise weaker than that 
of its breeder form it is said to “ break badly,” a different thing 
from a “ bad break.” Some of the loveliest breeders do this, and 
therefore every break from them is a misfortune. 
Occasionally a seedling will appear rectified at its first bloom, 
and so have never been seen in its breeder state. However, since it 
will be from five to seven years old before it can flower at all, it 
has had time to break during the long term of its bloomless child¬ 
hood. 
If it be asked why we prophesy before we know, and affect to 
tell this before ever seeing floral proof of it, I may explain that 
the foliage of the rectified Tulip is distinguishable, being mottled 
or streaked with lighter shades of green, while “ breeder grass ” is 
invariably “ solid ”—that is, of one rich shade unmingled. 
Vast interest attaches to breaking out the breeders, and every¬ 
one looks anxiously over the rising foliage for the streaky dawn of 
hope no more deferred. But when they break, or how to break 
them, no one knows or ever will know. It is all hidden in the 
silent mystery of the flower’s nature. Many coaxings and many 
hardships, many bribes and many tortures, have failed to elicit it. 
Eccentric and dangerous experiments have been tried, with different 
results and no revelations. Perhaps lowest in the scale of all 
unnatural absurdities suggested or attempted, we may reckon such 
atrocities as stitching an obstinate breeder with an embroidery of 
coloured thread to match the new dress it is desired to put on I 
or the idea (resplendent in its very enormity) of grafting the half 
of a rectified bulb upon the half of its refractory breeder ! 
Naturally, if the bulbs are vitally bisected the result is a dead 
failure—but, alas ! not necessarily a disproof. For if the rectified 
half happens to have had the young shoot of bud and foliage left 
in uninjured, (something like the advantage which the tail leg of 
mutton may be held to have over the other leg), it may not perish. 
The Tulip bulb will bear many things so long as the radical plate 
and the leaf germ are not destroyed. Hence it is just possible that 
at any time might some such vivisector confront us and say in 
triumph, “ Look here ! See that grand break ? Know how I did 
it ? No '? Well, you should do as I do—graft ’em.” 
Nay. If there be a way at all it is probably one that is grateful 
and not contrary to laws of health. Like as we all rejoice in change 
of scene, with all its helpful differences from the worn familiar 
round of life, so also the breeder Tulips seem to do. Change of 
soil, and especially of locality, are oftentimes coincident with 
changes in themselves, and we may account it due to the newness 
of such surroundings, but we cannot know for certain. 
This deeply interesting and unique property of the Tulip is 
properly the most enjoyed by him who is the most entitled to the 
reward, the raiser of seedlings. A perfect break from one already 
known is much delight, but nothing compared to the double interest 
of first blooming a seedling of high qualities, and then watching 
the sunrise of expectation break into the perfect day of hopes 
fulfilled, perhaps transcended.—-F. D. Horner, Burton - in - Lonsdale. 
To be continued.) 
OAK TREE DECORATIONS. 
If any of your country readers would like to furnish themselves with 
an appropriate and very pretty table decoration for May Day, let them 
sally out at once to the nearest clump of well-grown Oak—the bigger 
the better—and with walking-stick or umbrella-point let them turn over 
the wet leaves lying in patches under the nsw barren branches. 
That the leaves will be found in patches is dne to various causes, chief 
amongst them being the unevenness of the ground, and in the larger and 
deeper depressions the leaves will be lying in the thickest layers. Under 
these and close to the ground will be found abundance of acorns, which, 
thanks to constant moisture, have already started into growth. Let a 
pocketful of these be collected, and care taken that they do not get dry. 
Returning home, let your reader take three or four flower-pot pans, of 
from 6 to 8 inches diameter, and well wet two or three handfuls of cocoa 
fibre refuse. Placing a layer of this at the bottom of the pans, and 
scattering over it a dozen pieces of charcoal about the size of small hazel 
nuts, let him or her (as the case may be) lay the acorns upon it (on their 
sides) at the distance of about 2 inches from centre to centre of each 
acorn; then cover them with wet cocoa fibre to the depth of an inch. 
When gently pressed down, another dozen or so of charcoal “ nuts ” 
should be mixed with this covering. 
The three or four pans thus filled should be placed in varying posi¬ 
tions so as to insure a succession of growth. One may be placed in an 
intermediate or warm house, another in a cool greenhouse, a third in a 
cold frame, and a fourth in a sunny window. If care be taken to keep 
the fibre constantly moist (not flooded), sooner or later in the spring a 
very beautiful little grove of young Oaks will make its appearance in 
each pan. When these are from 4 to 6 inches high the pans, placed in 
vases, bowls, or deep plates, will be the source of much pleasure and 
admiration to all who see them. 
Deep vases or bowls should be filled with moss or other soft material 
to such a height as when the pans are put into them the rims of both 
may be level, and if a little moss be placed over the two rims, and thinly 
inserted over the surface of the pan between the little trees, the effect 
will be much enhanced. These “groves” retain their freshness and 
beauty for a long time if due attention be paid to keeping the pans moist 
and the leaves clean. When they show signs of distress the “ treelets ” 
should be removed from the pans and planted three together in 
48-pots. These should be plunged in a shady spot, and if lifted in 
the following spring and gently forced, will make charming decorations 
for the drawing-room or entrance-hall. A single “ treelet” planted in a 
thumb pot, and treated after the manner of the Chinese, will in two or 
three seasons make a sturdy little tree only a few inches high, but “ the 
very picture of his father.”— T. B. Wells. 
CHEAP AND GOOD ICE HOUSES. 
Calling at Rsngemore in September we were impressed with the 
great improvements that had been carried out in the extension of the 
pleasure grouads since our former visit ; with the fine crops of Muscat 
