338 
THE FLORIST. 
nearly so effective as when dry. The water of course is driven off 
by the process of combustion, and takes with it a certain amount of 
heat, which passes off as waste; in addition, the volume of smoke 
is increased thereby, and the space round your boiler, and the 
interior of your flues, are quickly choked up with soot. 
Procure your seeds at once for next season ; and if you are not 
fully satisfied as to their quality, sow a certain number of each kind 
in pots, and watch how many germinate out of the number sown. 
This will be a guide for you when the season for sowing them 
arrives, and save you disappointments. Observe, all seeds should 
be kept in a dry airy apartment, and not shut up in close drawers 
or boxes, when they frequently get damp and lose their vegetative 
property, and then the seedsman gets the blame. In damp situa¬ 
tions, such seeds as lettuce, celery, radish, onion, parsley, &c., 
should be placed in coarse canvas bags, and suspended from the 
ceiling of a room. Cucumber, melon, dahlias, balsams, larkspurs, 
stocks, marigolds, zeninas, and similar seeds, will be greatly im¬ 
proved by placing them loose in bags as above, and hanging them 
near the kitchen chimney, where there is a considerable warmth ; 
this will thoroughly ripen them, and, in the case of the two former, 
induce greater fruitfulness, and of the latter, a much larger pro¬ 
portion of double flowers. Age will have the same effect ; and, as 
a rule, seeds of composite flowers are more difficult to keep than 
others. 
Evergreens should now be planted. The soil is warm, and the 
weather favourable. The sooner, therefore, they are planted, the 
better chance have they to become established before winter. 
Mulch after planting. October and early in November is also the 
best season for pruning evergreens, as the wounds will heal before 
winter. If pruned too early, they are frequently disposed to make 
a new growth, which is as frequently killed by the frost of the 
succeeding winter, and the trees are disfigured. 
Six inches in depth of dry sawdust, or charcoal dust, placed over 
the floors of pits and frames, where half hardy or bedding stuff is 
to be wintered, will prevent the damp from rising, and probably 
save scores of plants, which would, without such an absorbent, 
fag off. 
THE LORD SUFFIELD APPLE. 
Mr. Abbots, Market Gardener, of Knaresborough, grows this 
apple. He sjieaks of it as one the best early kitchen apples in 
cultivation. He says it is larger, a little earlier, and a better 
baking apple than the Keswick Codlin. The tree is a strong free 
groAver. When its merits become better known it will, no doubb 
be planted largely. M. Saul. 
