122 
THE LADIES MAGAZINE OF GARDENING. 
QUERIES AND ANSWERS. 
DOUBLE DAISIES. 
In answer to the query of an invalid lady, in your first No. (p. 30) ? 
as to the best method of producing double flowers, you pass over the 
daisy saying, “ It is not necessary ” to render it double. I was much 
disappointed at finding this brief notice, and shall be glad to know your 
reasons for treating it so briefly; as that is one, among many wild flowers, 
I particularly wish to render double; and as amusement is my chief 
object in gardening, it would be a source of interest to watch the progress 
made from year to year, even if the process were tedious. 
I am even ambitious of producing the old-fashioned curiosity called 
the hen and chickens daisy, which proceeds from one already double I 
believe, and I should very much like to know how that is brought about. 
London, 
February 11 thy 1841. 
My reason for saying, in p. 30, that daisies did not require to be ren¬ 
dered double was, that as the daisy, in its natural state, consists of a great 
number of florets, it might, in a popular sense, be considered double natu¬ 
rally. In attempting to make the daisy truly double, we must remember 
that every division in the white part or ray is, in fact, a little flower, 
with its corolla, stamens, and pistil, all as perfect as in the peony, or any 
large single flower; the yellow part or disk is also composed of more than 
a hundred little florets, each, in the same way, perfect in itself; so that 
what is commonly called a flower of the daisy is, properly speaking, a 
head of flowers, each of which possesses the power of becoming double, 
when properly treated. When a flower becomes double, it is generally 
from the stamens and pistils turning into flower leaves or petals; and 
hence double flowers seldom produce much seed. The usual way of 
making plants produce more petals than seeds, is to supply them with a 
deep, rich, moist soil, into which the roots may penetrate to a considerable 
depth; as it is found from experience, that the nearer the roots of any 
plant are to the surface of the soil, the more likely the plant is to have 
few leaves in proportion to its fruits or seeds; and that the deeper the 
roots go, the more likely it is, to have more leaves and flowers than 
seeds. 
The common double daisy sometimes is as large as half-a-crown, but 
only the florets of the ray become double, and those of the disk are smaller 
and much fewer than in the daisy in the single state. In the hen and 
