January 15. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
239 
the secrets about florists’ flowers, when they are round 
enough and smooth enougli on the edges, when balls or 
half balls, or flat or sharp about the face, and all that 
sort of thing; and who knows hut that, between us, we 
may not hit on some new scheme which will excel all the 
rules of the old florists’ in rearing and improving seed¬ 
lings, and yet make a great stir in our own way, not¬ 
withstanding these small beginnings. One thing is 
quite certain, and that is the best feature of our esta¬ 
blishment, we shall have no secrets in the matter, but 
will talk and write about all we do, whether we fail or 
make a good hit of it. You shall always hear both sides 
of the question, and also such suggestions as the nature 
of the subjects under experiment may point out to our¬ 
selves, and that is more than what “ used to be.” 
Now, before we encumber ourselves with too many of 
our own notions, we shall be very thankful to receive 
kindly hints about such and such species and varieties 
as are likely, in the eyes of the sender, to produce im¬ 
provements by cross breeding, especially if the parties 
themselves have done a little that way with their own 
rough hands, or delicate fingers—I say delicate fingers, 
because the ladies have taken up this fancy as well as 
any of us. It was only the other day that “Verbena,” 
page 219, was told by the editor that her questions about 
crossing Geraniums involved “ tlie most difficult problem 
of the day.” My own progress has brought me down to 
the fourth stage on the journey towards the point in¬ 
quired about by “ Verbena,” namely, the way to get a 
purple bedder with flowers like Unique, and the plant 
having the habit of Lady Mary Fox, or that of a Diade- 
matum. When we have to solve “ the most difficult pro¬ 
blem,” or, indeed, any “ problem” about cross breeding, 
the first grand consideration is to find out what was the 
habit and what the colour of the first parents, or wild 
plants from which such and such plants have sprung. 
That enquiry is often very difficult, because when we 
receive a wild plant from a foreign land, there is no 
mark about it by which the best plantsman in the coun¬ 
try can determine if it be a genuine species; but that is 
of very little consequence, either to gardeners, or for a 
proper classification of plants by botanists, although it 
is everything to the cross-breeder. 
Volumes and volumes have been written to prove 
that we have a proof of the fact of a wild plant being a 
genuine species or not; but those who wrote thus knew 
no more of the subject than the man in the moon; I 
refer more particularly to foreign authors, who proved, 
to their own satisfaction, that the thing was so easy to 
make out that we need not trouble ourselves more about 
it. The reason why it is of so much importance to a cross¬ 
breeder to know whether he has to deal with a genuine 
species or not, may be illustrated thus: we know that 
flowers of certain colours refuse to produce certain other 
colours, let us cross them as we may; the want of a 
blue Dahlia is a familiar instance in every one’s mouth. 
We know, also, that certain colours, if they can be 
changed at all, will take many generations to do so. 
The word generation, in the language of cross-breeding, 
means the time from sowing a seed to the time the plant 
from that seed produces seeds of its own. If we were 
crossing annuals, a generation would only cover a few 
months, or twelve months at the farthest; therefore, if 
we are not on the wrong scent as to the colour of the 
true wild species, although we may fail for many gene¬ 
rations, still we may entertain reasonable hopes of 
producing a given colour to a seedling at last. Not so, 
however, if we are put on the wrong scent by believing 
that the first wild plant of the sort which wo took in 
hand was a genuine species, when it was no such thing; 
and our belief may lead us to work against the stream 
until our patience is exhausted. To make this still 
more clear, let us suppose two wild species growing 
together in Mexico; the one has blue flowers, the other 
has pink, and by some means or other the pink got 
crossed by the pollen of the blue flower, and produced 
a new colour, let us say a deep lilac. Well, Mr. Lobb 
goes over there and finds this plant with lilac flowers; 
he sends it home, and the first botanist wlio sees it 
makes it out to be a new Penstemon, and being from a 
wild part of the country, he takes it to be a genuine 
species, while it is only a variety between two wild 
species. A young cross-breeder takes it in band to 
improve it, or some other Penstemon by it; be finds it 
comes true from seeds, and he has been taught, by 
volumes of written nonsense, that if a plant comes true 
from seed it must be a species, and he is thus put off 
his guard as much as the botanist was by the wild 
country. He crosses it, and its cross-seedlings, till he 
gets cross himself, because he cannot turn the colour as 
he wants. At every crossing something of the original 
pink or blue comes manifest, and instead of clear, clean 
colours, he gets a brood of muddlers, and, not dreaming 
of mixed blood in Mr. Lobb’s plant, be is working on a 
wrong scent; and it is purely a matter of chance if he 
ever gets an improved colour, that chance being that 
some other species of Penstemon, whose colour he 
despised, but which he tried to cross with as a last 
resource, acted on the original pink or blue in such a 
way as to do just what he wanted. 
We, at the present day, stand in a worse position 
than this with respect to many of our bedding Gera¬ 
niums; not only do we not know the colour or habit of 
their first parents, but we are ignorant of the colours and 
habits of many generations which succeeded them; and 
not only that, but many good breeders, in every genera¬ 
tion, are now lost and cannot be replaced. Add to 
this the fact, that many of them have already reached 
the age or generation of barrenness, and we may well 
say, with our editor, that this subject is one of the most 
difficult problems of the day, but we must face it. And 
it is a curious coincidence that the very last inquiry on 
the subject—that by “Verbena”—refers to the newest 
seedling which I have obtained myself, the best in that 
line that has yet appeared, and the most difficult to 
obtain in that strain. It belongs to the fourth genera¬ 
tion from the original, working for a purple-flowering 
bedder in the way of the Unique; but I fear it will damp 
the ardour of “ Verbena” when I say that this one seed¬ 
ling took me seven years to work out without being fortu¬ 
nate enough to raise one good seedling of the same 
breed during the whole time, and even as it is, although 
my seedling is a perfect gem for a choice small bed in a 
lady’s flower-garden, it is not a real purple, and I fear 
it will not turn out to be a seeder; and if not, it will 
take five more years to work out a good purple from its 
pollen, which is also very scanty. They have named 
this seedling, The Shrubland Pet; it flowered late in 
JH50, and this last summer I had a little bed of it, and 
of all the troubles, of these troublesome times, the 
greatest trouble of all was to preserve this bed from 
being cut up by more “ Verbenas ” than I like to name. 
Some few privileged visitors had a cutting or two of it; 
some more were promised another year; and some went 
“ by hook or by crook,” as is often the case in a scramble 
like this. It is not in the trade yet, but it is well worth 
while making a memorandum about it. The plant is 
very drawf, but a very free grower, and it strikes like a 
weed at all seasons; tbe leaves are sweet-scented, very 
much jagged on the edges, and, like Unique, it is a 
trailer. 
Tire type plants first made use of are two of the 
greatest weeds as to flowers among all the Cape Gera¬ 
niums— Gapitatum and Bipinnatifidum. The first is 
a perfect weed in every respect, and is difficult to 
watch for crossing, the flowers being in close downy 
heads, and not much larger than a pin’s head; the 
other, with equally insignificant flowers, has very sweet 
