274 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
July 13. 
to the long Altriwjliam. Turnips, the Dutch Stone, 
Starishriclc, &c. Peas, from the Early Frame up to the 
fat Marrow section. Broad Beans, Lisbon and other 
Onions, and abundance of Cucumbers. Amongst the 
latter were a brace on one stern, which really might be 
taken for the production of the Derbyshire Spa cucum¬ 
ber makers; both of a length, fluted, or grooved, with 
artistic precision, and both possessing that high crite¬ 
rion of tenderness and freshness; the blossom on at the 
point; in other words, they might fairly have been 
castings from the same mould. 
These, then, constitute the chief features of this 
excellent Exhibition, and I hope to be pardoned for 
offering such details, with a few remarks consequent 
to the notice of our readers. The fact is, newspaper 
reporters give generally details about these things, but 
cannot look on them with the eye of an experienced 
gardener; they may string phrases together in a superior 
way, but cannot string important facts so easily, or make 
such valuable deductions. 
I must now suggest to the exhibitors the propriety of 
dispensing with sticks and stakes as much as possible. 
I verily had thought that the Baltic, in these war times, 
did not produce such a profusion of timber. Now, surely, 
plant growers must know that sticks are but means to 
an end; they are to the plant what the scaffolding is to 
a building. To be sure, some plants, after being artisti¬ 
cally trained, still require support; but I would suggest 
to trainers of exhibition plants, that they keep staking 
matters classified in their mind ; that they distinguish 
from the commencement of a plant’3 culture between 
permanent stakes and temporary ones, and that the 
latter be removed, as far as possible, in many specimens 
the moment the plant can do without them. The fact 
is, however, it requires much taste and experience to 
carry out such training, and the gardener, most unwil¬ 
lingly, is but too often compelled to employ a mere clod¬ 
hopper, and hence the bungling. So, then, I do not 
arrogate to myself the power to blame, but merely to 
suggest a reconsideration of such things; and these 
remarks, I fear, will apply more or less to most of our 
exhibitions. X feel fully persuaded that before many 
years are passed a superior taste will arise, hut there 
must, like other marketable things, be a demand before 
a supply can be expected; if reform is needed, the 
public must first appreciate it. The time will come, I 
trust, when plants naturally pendulous will be permitted 
to exhibit their natural impress; when the dense bush 
will not be forced into a pyramid, and a plant with, by 
nature, all the gracefulness of the Birch, or weeping 
Birch-tree, or of the Humea elegans, will not be snubbed 
into a green block. I quite agree w r ith my Clever 
friend, Donald Beaton, on this head, that our mere 
florists have done much harm to the higher order of 
taste; they have so insidiously woven the prescriptive 
meshes of their enslaving net-work, that, like poor 
Gulliver, we are bound down by every hair of our 
heads. 
I quite agree, that a little compromise is necessary, 
and that it would not be convenient to cause highly 
increased expenses through a necessary enlargement of 
our tents, &c.; but it will be seen in Britain, that with 
increasing commercial prosperity will, assuredly, come 
enlargement of ideas. The past history of our Crystal 
Palaces proves this. R. Ekrington. 
GERANIUM SEEDS AND SEEDLINGS. 
The practice of the florist differs materially from that 
of the flower-gardener, with respect to the time of sowing 
Geranium seeds, and with respect to the early manage¬ 
ment of the seedlings. Mr. Appleby has given, in detail, 
the whole management of this class of seeds in the ninth 
volume, page 384; and the same plan has lately been 
recommended in the current volume at page 227. The 
flower-gardener is more impatient; and the cross-breeder, 
who is neither a florist nor a flower-gardener, is faster 
than either of us. To secure a perfect cross, he intro- i 
duces the parent plants into forcing heat in the spring, 
and gets them into bloom long before the general col¬ 
lection, so that no insect or current of air may deceive I 
him by introducing pollen from neighbouring plants; 
there will be none on, or about, his premises to interrupt 
his experiment. I have acted in the double capacity of 
cross-breeder and flower-gardener for many years, and ’ 
no one need be more intimate with the care of a cross j 
seedling, yet I have learned something new about such > 
crosses not later than late in the summer of last year. 
One of our correspondents ( Amellus ), with whom I cor- | 
respond privately on such subjects, was remarking to 
me, in one of his letters, that “ life is too short to allow 
him to follow the plan of the florist ” with his Geranium 
seeds. He adds a perfect novelty in these words, “ I 
never allow my Geranium seeds to ripen at all ; as soon 
as the feathery tail of the seed turns black on the beak, 
and while the seed-coat is hardly browned, I cut them 
off, and sow them the same day,” and so forth. This 
was a new idea; but although Amellus is a first-rate 
hybridizer, and a gentleman of fortune, with a large 
garden establishment to boot, I must needs prove his 
plan to my own satisfaction before I said much about it. 
I began in July last year, and I have now seventeen 
experiments recorded inside the lid of my envelop box; 
and just outside the window where I am writing, are 
living evidences of the seventeen trials to the tune of 
eighty-four real healthy seedlings, all from unripe seeds, 
and all sown on the days on which they were gathered, 
beginning the sowings on the 10th July and ending on 
the 4th September. 
The first of the memoranda stands thus, No. 1, Ld. 
M. x Ld. C., .15 July 22. No. 2, and all the numbers 
do not occupy respectively more room than No. 1 on 
the envelop lid, so that there was no great bother in 
keeping the accounts. The plain meaning of No. 1 is 
this, Ld. M., Lady Middleton, x crossed with Lady 
Caroline, sown on the fifteenth of August, were up on 
the twenty-second. The number of seeds in each sow¬ 
ing, and the. number that came up of each, were marked 
by Seaton’s short-hand marking, to keep them distinct 
from the numbers for the days of the month. I have 
neither a hand-glass, nor a frame, cold or hot, nor a 
greenhouse, nor a stove, nor an orchid-house, and I 
made a sowing of Geranium seeds on the second week 
in October, which did not belong to the experiments; 
and out of close upon one hundred seedlings, I only lost 
eleven with the hard winter, and that loss was more 
through a foolish experiment than by the frost or damp. 
I may state, however, that since the second week of 
January we never had such a season, so favourable, for 
rearing seedlings since I left the foot ball in the Academy 
Park in Inverness. 
Seeds of a cross between Lady Middleton and Lady 
Caroline, which were not ripe, and which were sown at 
four different times, from the 15th of July to the 10th 
of August, came up on an average of seven days; two j 
more sowings in August took nine days; and one on the J 
the 4th of September took fourteen days in coining up. i 
Seeds from the self-same cross, which were allowed to | 
ripen in the usual way, wore sown as soon as they parted 
from the pods of their own accord, the dates of sowing 
and of coming up being kept, like those for the unripe : 
seeds; two sowings of ripe seed made in August took 
five and seven days longer to come up than the 
unripe seeds; but, probably, the differences would not 
hold good if all the sowings were made in a hotbed; 
my seeds were in the driest place for seeds, or plants, ip 
the county of Surrey, and it is so ventilated, day and 
