THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN'S COMPANION.— May 13, 1856. 100 
WEEKLY CALENDAR. 
D 
M 
D 
W 
_ 
MAY 13—10, 1856. 
1 Weather near London in 
Rarometer. Thermo. Wind. 
1855. 
Sun 
Rain in Rises. 
Inches. 
Sun 
Sets. 
Moon 
R. 8 c a, 
Moon’s 
Age. 
Clock 
af. Sun. 
Day cf 
Year. 
13 
To 
Whit Tuesday. 
20.618—29.406 
50—38 S.E. 
0.49 12 a 4 
40 a 7 
2 
17 
0 
3 
52 
134 
14 
\V 
Ember Week. 
! 20 . 678 — 29.615 
j 57—35 N.E. | 
- | n 
41 
2 
20 
10 
3 
62 
135 
15 
Th 
Necrophagus humator. 
j 29 . 572 — 29.551 
! 48—41 N.E. 1 
- 1 10 
43 
2 
39 
11 
3 
52 
136 
16 
F 
Neerophagus Germanicus. 
i 29.832—29.698 
50—30 N. 
— 1 8 
44 
0 
49 
12 
3 
61 
137 
17 
S 
Necrophagua Anglicanus. 
29 . 99 O- 29 . 9 Ol 
61—30 N.W, 
— 7 
46 
2 
58 
13 
3 
50 
138 
18 
Son 
Trinity Sunday. 
30.109—30.078 
64-39 , 8.W. 
— 5 
4 7 
3 
11 
14 
3 
48 
139 
19 
M 
Necrodes littoralis. 
1 30.025—29.860 
1 69—48 1 S. 
— 4 
48 
rises. 
© 
3 
46 
140 
Meteorology of the Week. —At Chiswick, from observations during the last twenty.nine years, the average highest and lowest tern, 
peratuves of these days are 64 . 8 °, and 41.2°, respectively. The greatest heat, 86 °, occurred on the 17 th, in 1833; and the lowest cold, 25°, 
on the 15th, in 1650. During the period 100 days were fine, and on 87 rain fell. 
LOBELIA RAMOSOIDES.—BREEDING FROM 
SHY SEEDING GERANIUMS. 
From the number of letters which reached our office 
this season on the subject of bedding plants, two out of 
three of them leaned to the opinion that there is some 
misunderstanding in the seed trade about the Lobelia 
ramosoides , and we have recorded a few of these letters, 
but, still, we are unable to decide which side is right. 
I Some of the most respectable houses in the trade have 
inserted the name in their seed lists; and all purchasers 
i would rejoice at the assurance that this, “ the very best 
of the dwarf blue Lobelias,” would come true from 
seeds. I should be so for one. It would save me the 
trouble of keeping store pots of it over the winter, and 
of making my two thousand cuttings of it in the spring. 
I mention it more particularly just novrfor this reason: 
I shall prove whether it will seed or not in a few weeks, 
or mouths, in my experimental garden, but that will be 
only for satisfying my own curiosity. My garden is not 
intended for “ proof” to the seed trade, that is, to prove 
if so-and-so is a species or a variety; or whether the 
j species, or the variety, comes true from seeds; or whether 
a reputed variety is likely to come true from seeds; or if 
i a certain variety seeds at all. All these questions 1 
have been trying to understand, more or less, every 
season since 1824, by direct experiments. In the second 
year of these attempts, that is, in August, 1820, I was 
threatened with a prosecution for witchcraft, by a 
Scottish Baronet, on the information of a Scottish dis¬ 
entitled Earl, who saw me crossing flowers in the con¬ 
servatory from his dressing-room, and thought 1 was 
playing the “ black art” with them. The informer, and 
the prosecutor—that was to be—are both dead now, and 
few would hear aught unreasonable against them at the 
present day; but, I believe, three good gardeners, who 
happened to be present at the very time, are still alive, 
and I am not yet sent to the stake for witchcraft. The 
oldest of the three gardeners went to America, and 1 
have lost sight of him. The next oldest is now one of 
the best gardeners in Berkshire, Mr. George Mills— 
and the youngest, I believe to be the author of that 
excellent articlo on Reclaiming the Wilderness, inserted 
lately in The Cottage Gardener from the “ Rural 
Magazine.” 
i Such questions must not, therefore, be determined 
j between the trade and the public in our pages. The 
“ black art” must be better employed in these days than 
by settiug people “ by the ears.” One of the parties 
j concerned was invited to send a sample for me to prove, 
but now it is too late, as I decline all such kinds of ex¬ 
periments; and all I can say to the question about 
Lobelia ramosoides is, that I looked over more than 
3000 plants of it in September, 1858, the last time I 
visited Shrubland Park, and I could not discover a 
single seed, nor any appearance of seeds. The few 
plants of it T had at home gave me no seeds, and since 
then I have had no opportunity of knowing if it has 
turned to a seeding state. But f know many kinds of 
cross seedlings that no one could get to seed for the first 
few years. Dr. Herbert mentious one bulb which took 
fourteen years, after first flowering, before it began to 
seed. 
From a letter now before me, marked “ Confidential 
and Private,” I must state that the writer has found out 
the secret of seeding Pelargonium fulgvlum quite freely. 
It is by making a dry stove plant of it every winter. 
When 1 began gardening first, Fulgidum, and about fifty 
kinds of the tuberous-rooted Geraniums from the Cape, 
used to be kept dry on the front shelves of the Pine 
stove, from October to April, along with such plants as 
Sprekelia formossissima, a hardy bulb, and Erithrina 
crista-galH, which is all but hardy, and Chrysanthemums. 
The same plan of wintering Geraniums I also find recom¬ 
mended in old books ; but such a house as was then 
called a dry stove is not now to be met with anywhere 
in this country for wintering bad seeders in. It is well 
worth while, however, for some of the nurserymen to 
take up the idea, and winter in the driest stove all their 
own favourites from which they cannot now get an im¬ 
proved cross, because the plants will not seed. Suppose 
that any one set his heart on getting a cross from the 
Lady of the Lake Geranium by the pollen of some 
Spanish Don or other, say Espartero, which was let 
out this time last year by Mr. Turner, of Slough ; that 
both kinds produced pollen, but that the former will not 
seed at all under ordinary treatment. The way 1 should 
do would be not to cut down the Lady of the Lake till 1 
late in October, and then cut out every shoot and part I 
of a shoot which is not perfectly hard and ripe; keep | 
the plant in the old soil all the winter, in a dark, dry 
place, under some of the shelves in the driest stove, and 
give it no more water than would just keep it alive. 
Early in the spring—as it could not be leftdry longer with¬ 
out doing it harm—1 would shake it out of the old soil; 
keep all the roots which were alive—the small fibres die, 
or should die—in a dry stove, aud place the pot near the | 
glass in the same house ; then bring in a healthy plant 
of Espartero to force into bloom for pollen; the crossing 
would then be in April and early in May, when no 
common pollen is flying about. Alter “ setting,” 1 
would keep the mother-plants in heat until the seeds 
were very near being ripe. 1 would then gather them, 
and sow them the same day ; the earliest crossed would 
be ripe enough for sowing by Midsummer day, and each 
seedliug would be in a sixty-pot before the end of next 
September. Indeed, if the seeds were not sown till the 
20th of July, the seedlings might be potted oft' singly 
before September was out, as seedlings grow very fast, 
in heat, at that season. 
If I had a stove to carry on experiments in winter 
and spring, l would undertake to produce seedlings of 
bedding-plants, or hybrid perpetuals, which would be 
as much sought after by the florists i'or the Shows, as 
they could not fail to be by every flower-gardener who 
heard their merits. Having no stove, however, and 
knowing the thing to be out of the question with gar¬ 
deners where stoves abound, the nurseries seeui the j 
No. CCCXGVIIL Von. XVI. 
