THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION.— July 8, 1856. 255 
be planted in the open ground, as the suckers of Pine¬ 
apples are put into hotbeds to root, who would he with¬ 
out Irises? or who would have them “ all in lumps ” or 
clumps, as you see them hut too often, instead of mixing 
the colours as much as possible, as should he done in 
all mixed plants? and how easily that may he done, if 
you take them in bloom, and divide them, or rather slip 
from them at that time, as Mr. Salter does. 
His large bed of those Paonies was most magnificent, 
and with the exception of the crimson ones from the 
strain of Potsii, and the rose-coloured kinds, the great 
majority of them take those indescribable tints which j 
we find so difficult to define in the Tea-scented Roses, ! 
fawn, nankeen, French white, and all degrees of blushes, 
from bashfulness up to being swelled in the face with 
rage. The earliest of them, with a delicate blush and , 
lemon centre,is called Queen Victoria; Potsiiplenissima, i 
fiery crimson, is a most superb thing; Lilacina superba, j 
a splendid rose and lilac; Qrandiflora cornea plena, \ 
rosy-blush, is among the largest of the race ; Formosa 
plena, blush rose; Anemonijlora striata, blush yellow, j 
with crimson stripes; E dulls superha, deep rose; 
Elogons superbissima, silvery blush; Nivea plenissima, 
a fine blush white; Reine Hortense, white, with rosy 
centre ; Humea alba, creamy rose, very fine ; Duchess '< 
of Orleans, deep rose, with a blush centre; and Duchess j 
of Nemours, not quite so deep a rose; Prolifera tricolor, \ 
white and lemon centre, very beautiful; Comte (le Paris, 
rose guard, and a pale buff centre, fine; Anemonijlora \ 
alba, ditto; Tricolor grandiflora, rose and blue. All 
these, and several others, wero exhibited at the Crystal 
Palace, where I took the names; but, as I said before, 
cut blooms give no idea of the richness of a large bed 
of them. 
I had seen a most curious set of Prussian Pansies at 
Claremont lately; and Mr. Mallison told me he had the 
seeds from Erfurt, and that was the first time he had 
them in bloom. I saw a profusion of kinds of the very 
same very curious Pansies, at Mr. Salter’s, who sent 
the first seeds of them to Hamburgh and all parts 
of Germany, whence they are distributed all over the 
world as German Pansies. However, they, the Germans, 
paid Mr. Salter very well for the honour. He sent them 
five ounces the first year, at two guineas the ounce; and 
yet there is not a siugle bloom from that seed which 
would not disgust a true florist. You never saw such 
oddities in your lifo. I took cuttings of all the kinds at 
Claremont for the experimental garden, just to make 
people laugh at them. Some are all eyes, some all 
ears; some w r ith and some without noses, and some with 
the nose turned on one side; some of them look as if 
they had been out boosing all last night, with their faces 
scratched, and lined, and veined; some without a shoe 
or stocking, or a leg to stand on ; and some just dressed 
to danco on the stage; and there is no end of clowns 
and “ Merry Andrews” among them ; aud all the host came 
from a streaked weed, which Mr. Salter picked up in the 
garden a few years back; but others, as Messrs. Howuie 
and Laird, in Scotland, have taken to raise them now, and 
there can be no question about their getting soon into as 
much favour as “fancy flowers,” among Pelargoniums, 
Dahlias, and Chrysanthemums. 
Here I saw in bloom, for the first time, the now Pe¬ 
tunia, which Mr. Henderson, of the Wellington lload 
Nursery, is sending all over the country, by the name 
of Countess of Ellesmere-, a most lovely thing, — “a 
duelc," in fact, as a friend calls my Countess Geranium. 
The Countess of Ellesmere is not a cross, nor a sport, 
but one of those rare seedlings which make their ap¬ 
pearance like comets, and are themselves reproductions 
of the mother in a superior degree. This is Shruhland 
Rose Improved ; and if it does out of doors as well as I saw 
it with Mr. Salter in a pot in doors it is, without excep¬ 
tion, the most valuable Petunia that was ever raised. 
Shruhland Rose is a cross from a most delicate mother, 
now no more—the Ilighclere Rose, by the pollen of Me- 
dora, a strong grower. It was the only good seedling 
out of sixty in 1848; but the constitution is seldom di¬ 
vided in these et cceteras, — the mother side is more often 
followed. 
Mr. Salter had a collection of new Petunias in 
bloom. I noted the following as very novel to my eye: 
—Marquis de St. Innocent A mar an the, a shade of purple, 
striped white; Hermione, blush and spotted ; Impera- 
trice Eugenie, rosy-striped white; Adolphe Huass, very 
large purple; Madame Qlcede, carmine ground, much 
pencilled; M. Eugene Lemechey, peach colour, edged 
white; and Gloriosa, for thoso who like size better than 
colour: this is an immense light flower, with a deep 
green border. I do not like those green-bordered Petu¬ 
nias, but many do, and admire them very much. There 
is no accounting for taste, that is certain. 
Mr. Salter’s Blushing Bride is the best white, scarlet 
Geranium I have yet seen ; and among several lands of 
Unique is one very near the flower for which Mr. 
Veitcli got the first prize at the Crystal Palace,—it is 
called Unique Le Quintinie. 
Among a host of vanegated plants, I noted a “ frosted- 
silver ” plant, called Centaurea candidissima, and of all 
that class of plants, this is the very best, every part 
of the plant being as white as the whitest parts of Cine¬ 
raria maritima, the original “frosted-silver” plant; a 
most beautiful golden-veiued-leaved Lily of the Valley 
a golden-striped “ Gardener’s Garter,” Arundo versicolor 
and Myoporum pictum, a very old plant, with singularly 
beautiful dotted leaves when well grown; together 
with a large collection of variegated rock-plants; a most 
curious hanging basket-plant, named Coris, from Naza¬ 
reth ; the very old Lathyrus rotundifolius, with clusters 
of brick-red flowers; immense quantities of Phloxes, Pent- 
stemons, Potentillas, Double Daisies, single and double 
Pyrcthruras and Matricarias, and ten thousand seedling 
Chrysanthemums. 
In the“ Chronicles of the Experimental Garden” I said 
that the Geranium Rosea compaction was only fit for a 
drawing-room ; but here Mr. Salter has a specimen plant 
of it a yard high, and more than that across the head. 
Fifty of such plants would make the finest Geranium- 
bed in the world. 
When Dr. Herbert died, I thought, foolishly enough, 
that I ought to know as much of the laws of cross¬ 
breeding as any one; but I have been thoroughly 
, beaten on that subject, and whether I am second, 
or third, or even fourth,' I cannot tell. The first cross 
breeder in England tells me he does not see much 
use in registering genealogies, on which I put much 
stress. If every bedding Geranium, for instance, was 
truly registered, as to its parentage, it would save mo 
three years in every cross I wish to prove. If I had 
known the parents of, say, Bishopstoue Scarlet, which 
j was sent some weeks back in a diseased state, when I 
even did not know it, it would save me the last three 
years with that cross. Several of the contributors to 
I the “Experimental” have sent in plants of Bishopstowe 
Scarlet; and the moment I saw the flower of it I could 
. tell the mother, aud make a near guess of the real father 
of it, for I have this season no end of the very same 
1 cross. HarJcaivay is another ; I never heard of it till I 
; read that thousands of it were used as edgings at 
Shruhland Park, or were in preparation for edgings If 
j I had heard of it before I knew the parents from which 
i it descended, what a bother I should escape ! Now, 1 
! have only this consolation—that I verify now what an¬ 
other man proved three or four years ago, unless it be 
a consolation to know how to make a horse-shoe Hark- 
auay, a nosegay Harkaway, or a Ilarkauay in any 
section. There is nothiug more useful to be known by 
I the cross breeder than the true capacities for breeding, 
