10 
THE FLORIST. 
REMARKS ON RAISING THE ABOVE. 
With much pleasure, I hand you the accompanying observations 
connected with the seedling Fuchsia blooms which I forwarded for 
your opinion. They contain a correct statement of their origin, and 
the means adopted to preserve the good qualities of their parents, and 
to avoid the bad ones. It must be remembered, that I have carefully 
abstained from the employment of the pale varieties in my operations. 
High colours alone have been my aim hitherto. 
My previous experience in hybridising taught me that, before I 
could hope to get away (if I may be allowed the expression) from 
the host of seedlings annually inundating the nurseries, I must pro¬ 
ceed quietly and patiently for several years. If I rigidly adhered to 
this rule, I thought I must succeed. If the opinion expressed in the 
Gardeners' 1 Chronicle to the effect, that “ all attempts to improve the 
Fuchsia by hybridising had proved a total failure,” had appeared in 
1840 instead of 1847, it is a question whether I should have made 
the attempt or not; but as “ ignorance is bliss,” I have plodded on 
for seven long years. Each year I have seeded the most promising 
seedling that the current season produced, always having regard to 
habit and freedom of flowering as indispensable qualities. After 
seeding, I destroyed the plants ; and was cheered as I proceeded by 
observing a manifest improvement from year to year, which kept alive 
the hope that at some future day I should realise the object of my am¬ 
bition, viz. a Fuchsia that, in colour, smoothness, substance, and form, 
should be unexceptionable in the judgment of the most fastidious 
connoisseur. The plant I originally selected to work from and upon 
was a large rambling variety, “ Radicans” or “ Affinis,” a species 
now but little known, and rarely found in any collection. I cannot 
remember, at this distance of time, the names of the other varieties 
I crossed with it, or that I used upon it. It will be sufficient to say, 
that I selected for this purpose, from the sorts then cultivated, those 
varieties which possessed the highest colours, w T ith expanding sepals, 
and freedom in flowering. I was most anxious to enlist into my 
service “ Formosa elegans,” but I never could succeed in setting 
one pod of seed upon it; and, from its being a mule, of course 
it yielded no pollen. In 1843, Pince’s “ Exoniensis” made its ap¬ 
pearance, and I immediately availed myself of its aid ; for it could 
boast of what none of its predecessors could do,—a bold and well- 
formed purple corolla, though of no great depth of colour ; and which, 
a few hours after the expansion of the flower, faded off into a deep 
red or maroon. The seedlings I raised from this flower invariably 
had an awkward shoulder in the tube, so conspicuous in “ Exoniensis,” 
as well as a disposition to be sleepy, a fault I could by no means 
endure ; indeed, my operations with it turned out, in all respects, 
a failure. 
In the mean time, seedlings from my old stock were steadily 
though slowly progressing in a favourable manner, till I was induced 
to submit some five or six flowers, the production of this season, to 
a gentleman upon whose judgment, competence, and impartiality, I 
