160 
THE FLORIST AND POMOLOGIST. 
[July, 
very centre of the plant. The parents of these baleful appearances are probably 
insects, whose movements among freely ventilated plants are not easily controlled. 
Keep just a genial moisture in the soil, and beware of shutting up the plants 
wet, or allowing water to lodge at the base of the leaves. Watering is, in its 
details, a rule-less operation. It will just depend upon the weather, closeness of 
soil, and porosity of pots. If there is a very drying wind blowing, the pots are 
soon too dry; and I then prefer shutting the frames down till the moister 
atmosphere of the night, and so save the plants an extreme change. 
A few enterprising slugs may find their way into the frames, and are best 
hunted for at night, as they dine late. Their mark is generally a fretting of the 
foliage upon the upper side, and when they have satisfied themselves, they slowly 
move off home, often giving no address.— F. D. Horner, Kii'hhy Malzearcl^ llipoiL 
ON KAISING NEW VARIETIES OF THE CARNATION 
AND PICOTEE. 
2*^ VERY florist worthy of the name either does or ought to aim at raising 
seedlings which are an improvement on older varieties ; in this, indeed, 
lies the chief and true secret of delight in floriculture.” So wrote the 
late Dr. Horner, in the first volume of the Florist^ just eight-and-twenty 
years ago, and no writer was better able to state a truth in clear and forcible 
language than he. 
Having had considerable practice in cross-breeding, and some little success in 
various fields, I offer the following observations, in the hope that they may be of 
service to those of my brother florists who may not have had equal opportunities. 
At the outset, I desire to impress upon the mind of every interested reader, 
that it will be only by the most careful selection of the parents and the perfect ripen¬ 
ing of the seed, that varieties worthy of cultivation and likely to confer fame on the 
raiser can be expected. From neglect or inability—it matters little which, save that 
one is a fault, and the other a misfortune—to get the seed perfectly ripened, whole¬ 
sale disappointments have arisen, and I venture to assert, as an axiom beyond dis¬ 
pute, that unripened seed cannot produce a healthy-constitutioned or long-lived issue. 
Assuming, however, that these great causes of failure have been avoided,—the 
first by selection, after attentive consideration of the parents, which, if possible, 
should be of robust habit, more especially in the case of the seed-bearing or 
mother-plant, and which should bear flowers of the highest properties in the eyes 
of the florist,—the work to be done will be very simple. 
In the first place, let the operator provide himself with a sufficient quantity 
of small squares of parchment for labels on which to record the crosses he effects^ 
and assuming his varieties are distinguished by numbers, and his first cross is 
Admiral Curzon (No. 1) and Dreadnought (No. G), he marks the label thus 
indicating that pollen from No. 1 has fertilised the ovary of 
No. G ; and this label being attached, the work proceeds. Some time 
last year I noted a writer in the Journal of IiorticiUtur''VQCommBmdiQS. 
