118 
OX RAISING AND EXHIBITING THE HOLLYHOCK. 
stem to within three inches of the ground, stir the earth round with a fork, not deep enough to hurt 
their fibres, hut to let the air in. In discarding the worthless varieties the instant they bloom, yon pre¬ 
vent the seed of the good ones from being contaminated. 
Late in the autumn yon will observe how many heads the plants have, and you may dig them up, 
and part them accordingly; replacing them in the gronnd, giving them a foot apart, and labelling them 
with a number referring to the number in your hook, and under which you describe them, with all their 
peculiarities, and particularly that for which you selected them and saved them. It is practicable to in¬ 
crease some Hollvhocks bv eves—that is, hv taking the stem off and cutting an inch of it with the leaf 
on, and planting them on heat as you would the eyes of a vine, and thus producing young plants ; hut 
none are so good and so strong as those produced by parting the roots. When, therefore, you have de¬ 
cided on propagating a plant which has bloomed, you may greatly promote the spreading of the roots 
to several heads, by forking the ground up round it and giving plenty of dung, cutting down the stem 
to within six inches of the ground. This will promote rapid growth and spreading into separate heads: 
at the end of the season, say October or November, dig them up, part them into as may pieces of roots 
as there are eyes, or rather hearts, to grow, and plant them out in rich ground eighteen inches apart: 
if in rows, or in places where they ought to bloom, they may require watering in dry weather for a 
time until they have firm roots again, and begin to make fresh growth; hut they will not do much 
beyond keeping alive until the spring months return, when they will grow fast. This second year will 
prove whether the flower, generally speaking, is worth being placed among the better sorts, or fails to 
maintain the character which procured for the plant the distinction of being labelled and propagated. 
The Hollyhock is clearly becoming adopted everywhere as a favourite; and it may deserve it, if 
florists will be careful to throw away enough, and not keep second-rate sorts, for the purpose of saying 
thev raised such, for it is no credit to have raised a second-rate variety : and we would much rather 
see a man destroy a whole collection than risk spoiling good seed for the sake of a second-class plant. 
If there is any lack of a good bold centre, well filled with florets, discard them. If the petals are thin, 
throw the plants away; you are better without colour than without form, and thin petals cannot 
retain anv form. If the flowers be not close on the stem thev are useless : the bloom should form one 
solid pyramid, as it were, the flowers touching one another, spreading out rather wide, for the larger 
the base and the smaller the point the better. "Whether the stem be three or six feet high, the flowers 
should be much further from the stalk at bottom than they are at top—in fact, gradually taper to¬ 
wards the upper point, which will be unbloomed buds, and close as they can be to the stem. As you 
may have a knife without having a spade, you may make a rule of cutting down all the stems of those 
that are inferior the instant a single flower opens, and they can be dug up at a future period: by 
moving the flower at once, you prevent the spread of its fertilizing dust, and the few good ones that 
remain will have every chance of producing you even better things than themselves, whereas, if they 
were to be left, there would be far greater numbers worse than there would be equal to even the worst 
of the plants sowed from. The Hollyhock is a noble plant to place within shrubberies, or at the backs 
of broad borders, or in a line a few feet from the edge of a path, and it cannot be too much cultivated 
as a garden flower, whatever might be said of it as a show flower. 
There has been much difference of opinion as to the propriety of making the Hollyhock a florists’ 
flower, because of the difficulty of making arrangements for its exhibition. The whole spike is too 
much, a single bloom is too little. The properties being on the plant and spike, and not in the indivi¬ 
dual flowers alone, it is possible that one of the finest individual flowers may be on the very worst plant. 
Many there are which have their flowers very good, but so wide apart, that the spike is frightful; 
others, which are somewhat inferior in the flower, have a splendid spike. It has been, therefore, decided, 
that a piece of the stem with five flowers to it should be exhibited; this will give the form of the spike 
almost, and entirely exhibit the beauty of the individual flowers : but there ought not to be prizes at 
all for those who show collections of single flowers. Let all the spike be shown, when somebody will 
tell us how to prevent its flagging. However, the effect of a part of the stem with five perfect flowers 
to it is very good. It is showy enough to help an exhibition greatly, but it must be strictly limited as 
to number, and all must show alike. The stands mav now be as diversified as those of Dahlias: there 
' V * 
are already hundreds of shades, colours, and mixtures—though we never care to see more than about 
thirty of them ; the rest are good for nothing but throwing away. The most successful grower and 
improver was the late Mr. Baron, of Saffron Waldon. His set was purchased early by Bircham, of 
Headingham Bungay, who follows up the raising of new varieties with spirit, and who, we presume, 
will occasionallv inform us as he gets readv to send out anvthing very new and very good. But Mr. 
Baron’s death greatly interrupted the progress of this flower, for he had the fair start of everybody, 
as Mr. Hoyle and Mr. Beck have for Geraniums. 
