280 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ September 29, 18)2. 
northern aspect. When well grown they need no staking except 
for removal to the exhibition, when a stake is necessary. A stake, 
however, should be used to prevent the spike falling from any 
cause and being broken. 
The plants should be watered after they are removed from the 
plunging material, and from that time they should never be allovved 
to suffer by an insufficient supply. At first growth is slow, very 
little evaporation takes place, and water should be given with care. 
If they are over-watered the foliage is very liable to take the lead 
of the spike, which must be prevented, and which can only be 
accomplished by care and judgment. When rich soil is given 
stimulants in a liquid state should be supplied with care ; the plants 
will not need much extra support. Clear soot water acts quickly 
in the later stages, and imparts a fine dark green hue to the 
foliage. Liquid made from cow manure, fresh, tied up in a bag, 
and placed in a tank of water, is also good when used clear. After 
they reach a certain stage feeding assists the plants in lengthening 
out their flower spike. 
Dressing I need say little about. Those with large loose bells 
do not lend themselves to the dresser’s skill readily, and can very 
rarely be improved much. The case is different with those that 
have their bells thickly set on the spike. They would often be too 
crowded, and fail to show their bells individually, unless one here 
and there were removed. Bells that have short stems, and which 
would destroy the symmetry of the bloom, are those that should be 
removed, they will make room for the others. The spike can be 
lengthened by slightly pressing down the lower bells and filling up 
the top ; if this is well and carefully done the top of the spike can 
be made full and even, while the base can be rendered symme¬ 
trical. The varieties that tell best are not, as a rule, those of loose 
habit, but those that are full and by a little arrangement of the 
bells have full, large, shapely spikes with well developed bells. 
Nothing can be done at the foliage to improve the plant. If they 
are well grown there is nothing to be done, but if poorly grown, 
and any attempt is made to improve the foliage, they are only 
disfigured in the eyes of those who know what a well grown 
Hyacinth should be. 
A plant with too little foliage is as bad, speaking from a judge’s 
point of view, as a plant with too much—that is, with its foliage 
too long. The latter would, no doubt, take precedence, because it 
would possess the best spike and bells. Having plants with the 
foliage drawn may be due to two causes at least—first, hurrying 
the plants in their last stages, or growing them in too confined an 
atmosphere. If the plants are too early, and they have to be 
retarded, up goes the foliage and the stem of the spike. Unfor¬ 
tunately, also, the flowers lack that brightness of colour which 
young fresh flowers possess, or those that have been well grown 
and staged at the right age. The plant that is deficient in foliage 
according to its age very rarely has a first-class spike ; if it has it 
is an accident, and would have been wonderfully good had all 
gone well. A plant deficient in foliage is also deficient in roots. 
If the spike is of fair size, which sometimes is the case, the flower 
lacks colour, substance, and size of bells. 
A list of varieties will not be given, because all good catalogues 
contain the most suitable sorts distinguished by some mark or other. 
The amount to be expended on the bulbs must also very largely 
determine the selection to be made.— Wm. Bardney. 
THE NEW GERMAN CARNATIONS AND 
PICOTEES. 
Since Mr. Benary of Erfurt introduced the famous yellow 
Carnation Germania, the finest of all the yellow seifs, much 
interest has been felt by many leading cultivators in the new 
varieties annually raised at Erfurt, and some very fine varieties 
have been introduced by Mr. Benary—notably, Stadtrath Bail, 
Theodor, Esmarsh, Sarony Unger, Von Bennigsen, William Dreer, 
Madame Van Houtte, Van Dyck, Von Helmholtz, Schleiben, and 
others. Many of them are novel and most pleasing in their shades 
of colour. The autumn of 1891 brought a batch of other new 
sorts from Mr. Benary which have been well tested this season at 
the Spa'khill Nurseries, Birmingham, by Mr. Herbert, and from 
amongst them the following will be welcomed by growers as 
acquisitions—viz., Johann Huss, lemon ground flushed with 
delicate pale rosy pink, a very lovely and distinct variety ; Hein¬ 
rich Engel, maroon and scarlet flaked, the latter colour very bright, 
a large, distinct, and very fine flower ; Brockhaus, orange-salmon 
ground colour, flaked and barred with heliotrope, fine form, a well- 
builc flower, distinct and extra fine ; Justus Meyer, a very distinct 
flower of an almost indescribable colour, a rich brown lilac tint 
with a bright satiny surface, and flaked with scarlet, and here and 
there a crimson bar ; Mommson, orange ground flaked with crimson 
lake, with a distinct broad margin of bright heliotrope, a beautiful 
and distinct variety ; Klopstock, a deep rosy carmine self, a bright 
shade of colour, and of fine form; Gilbert, a grand flower with 
fine broad petal and of full size, rich bright rosy carmine ; 
F. A. Haage, orange ground colour flaked with carmine and deep 
heliotrope, fine and quite distinct ; Consistorialrath Reush, a very 
distinct flower with a large extent of canary ground colour, flaked 
with a crushed strawberry shade of colour, fine petal and form, 
and distinct; Celsius, yellowish buff distinctly flaked with scarlet, 
a very distinct and fine Carnation ; Emilia Galotti, pale lemon 
suffused with salmon, good form and distinct ; John Benary, 
shaded rosy pink with orange-scarlet and rosy-purple bars, very 
distinct and fine ; Pastor Schultze, primrose yellow ground with 
flakes and bars of bright violet purple, a distinct and fine variety ; 
Cordula, a blue tinted slate ground flaked with bright scarlet, 
a very distinct and flue variety ; and Schlosser, sent out in 
1890, creamy yellow ground flaked and broadly bordered with 
heliotrope and bright rosy crimson, broad petal, of fine form, and 
distinct. 
Several other new varieties were introduced in the autumn of 
1891 by Mr. Benary, some of which are very curious in their mark¬ 
ings and colours, but will not be regarded as acquisitions for 
exhibition purposes. If new varieties are to become popular 
amongst the growers for exhibition the flowers must be of very 
fine form, and possess other good properties. Others of 
Mr. Benary’s will have another season’s trial. English cultivators 
are greatly indebted to him for introducing some extremely fine 
varieties, with new shades of colour. Almost all his new varieties 
have good constitutions, and are strong growers, producing plenty 
of “grass” or offshoots. Mr. Benary was present at the last 
August Exhibition of the Midland Counties Carnation and Picotee 
Society at the Edgbaston Botanic Gardens, Birmingham, and had 
an opportunity of seeing how well his new varieties have been 
grown and exhibited, by the midland growers especially. 
Another florist in the neighbourhood of Erfurt also introduced 
during last autumn some new varieties of German origin, and has 
evidently a good strain, rivalling in some respects Mr. Benary’s. 
Amongst Mr. Ferdinand Jiihlke’s new varieties the following are 
acquisitions—viz , Frerna Beweoldt, bright yellow ground, with 
flakes and bars of bright crimson maroon, and quite distinct; Don 
Juan, creamy yellow, flaked and barred with bright plum and 
crimson ; Mazeppa, orange ground colour suffused with bright 
carmine and flaked with maroon, a fine and very distinct flower ; 
Beethoven, orange ground, heavily flaked, and marked with deep 
heliotrope ; and Golffina Hoffmann, white ground, heavily barred 
with bright rose, tinted mauve, and edged with a deeper shade of 
colour, a handsome variety of dwarf compact habit. 
All the varieties enumerated in these notes are classed as 
fancies or seifs, Carnations and Picotees. They are becoming very 
popular for decorative work, either in pots or in borders, and they 
last well in a cut state in rooms. For conservatory and indoor 
decoration plants can be easily grown in 5 to 6-inch pots, and they 
are beautiful when so grown.—W. D. 
POTTING MARGUERITES. 
Those whose stock of these useful plants is limited should 
make a point of potting as soon as possible plants which are now 
growing in mixed borders or in the flower garden. No doubt 
many will be reluctant to spoil, to a certain extent, their bedding 
arrangements ; but it is not safe to defer this work any longer if 
the plants are wanted to supply cut flowers during the winter, for 
a few degrees of frost seriously cripple the young shoots, on the 
points of which flower buds have already formed. 
Marguerites which have been used art dot plants are the best 
for the purpose, because on account of their being thinly disposed 
the growth made is sturdy and floriferous. In many instances 
such plants can be lifted without spoiling the appearance of the 
beds ; in our own case it is so. We have them as dot plants along 
the centre of large beds, in which Ivy-leaved Pelargoniums form 
the groundwork. A few pegs will be removed from these, and 
the shoots laid aside. It will then be a simple matter to cut round 
the Marguerites with a spade, and lift them with good balls of 
earth. The less these balls are disturbed the slighter will be the 
check upon the plants, but it is sometimes desirable to place large 
plants in comparatively small pots ; a considerable amount of the 
soil must then be removed and the roots cut clean with a knife 
before the plants are potted. 
This treatment will cause them to suffer severely for a time, 
but it is really surprising how quickly these accommodating plants 
recover from the check. A few weeks ago I had occasion to pot a 
few which were about 2 feet in diameter, the roots of which had run 
rather wide, and only an imperfect ball could therefore be obtained. 
These were potted into 7 and 8-inch pots, placed behind a north 
