December 5. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER, 
177 
gotten from tliat day till one day last week, when it 
came into my head, no doubt, on good purpose. If! 
had thought of it sooner, and had proved it, as I think 
it will be by some one else, it would make me feel proud 
of myself, and I ought to be thankful that 1 forgot it 
till now. 
The way Chrysanthemums were grown and flowered 
at Altyre, thirty years since, is now patronised by the 
Chrysanthemum Society of Stoke Newington, near 
London, for getting cut-blooms of the largest size. That 
way is to make cuttings of the best suckers on the old 
shoots, one or three in a small pot, some time in April, 
and to repot them as soon as they root; to get them out 
in front of a south wall early in June; to plunge the 
pots to the rim, and no more, in front of the wall, but 
| not close to it, after the first fortnight; and never to 
i stop them on any account whatever, but to encourage 
j them, by liquid-manure, once pr twice a week, from the 
; day they were first plunged, not from the day they 
! showed flower-buds,—as if they wished for dwarf plants, 
| by turning them round and round to the sun from time 
i to time, and by thinning the flower-buds as soon as the 
| best-placed of them, and the largest in size, could be 
1 made out, and only leaving one, two, or three flowers to 
expand on one plant. By having three plants in a pot, 
without branches, and three flowers on each top, the 
! long stems could easily be drawn together with a pieco 
of matting, so as to appear us if they were but one head 
after all. Plants thus treated rise from three to six 
feet high, according to the size, and produco blooms of 
enormous size—much larger, indeed, than by any other 
method. The plan is not a bad one either for some 
parts of most of the large conservatories. It would be 
the best plan of growing Chrysanthemums to stand 
among the Rhododendrons and Camellias in the Crystal 
i Palace, where you could only see the tops; but the style 
would never do where the pots and plants could all be 
‘ seen at once. 
Well, that was the plan—the single stem—at the 
period I am writing about. 'The plants were then placed 
among other tall plants, so as to hide the tallness of the 
stems, and to show the flowers only up among the tall 
plants; but we forced them. At the beginning of 
September the plants were housed, and a few of them 
were put into the stove; the extra length caused by 
i forcing was considered no detriment then, and we had 
them “ in ” by the beginning of October. As soon as 
| they were out of bloom, we did not turn them aside as 
we do now-a-days, but rather put them into the pine- 
stoves, on the side curbs, without cutting them down, 
‘ except a little at the top with the dead flowers. The 
i Chrysanthemum will stand the heat of the stove in 
winter, and seems to like it; the tall stems never seem 
to want cutting down—at least our’s did not—and the 
' suckers were pulled off as fast as they appeared, and 
cuttings were then made of the upper branches only; 
about the end of March they were removed to the 
greenhouse ; and they were planted out with the Dahlias, 
in the borders, in May, where they soon made great, 
! bushy plants, as tall as Salvias. Some kinds would 
flower well the following autumn; after that they were 
dug over as good-for-nothing. 
About this time, it was rumoured that Chrysanthe¬ 
mums sported, both in China and in England ; that is, 
that a branch, here and there, would, occasionally, give 
flowers of a different colour from the rest on the plant, 
and when cuttings were instantly made from the sporting 
branch, the new colour would follow and become perma¬ 
nent. Now, this curious disposition to sport was made 
the foundation of the ingenious experiment, which 1 
want particularly to be settled next year, or the following 
year, at the farthest. The particular experiment was 
tried on a sport, but I should think any kind would do; 
at all events, the thing has not been proved either way. 
The rationale of the plan was founded on the fact, that 
a bud from a variegated Jasmine, inserted into a green¬ 
leaved Jasmine, will cause all the green leaves to turn 
variegated also; even it the variegated bud should die 
before all the leaves tinged with tho matter which caused 
the chango. To follow up this idea on a plaut of 
Chrysanthemum, which was known to be naturally 
disposed to change, or sport, five or six different kinds 
were grafted on one such plant in May, and on side- 
branches high up on an old stem which wintered in 
the stove; then, by thus compelling so many different 
kinds to circulate their juices in the body of a plant, 
already noted for a sporting character, it was reason¬ 
ably expected that the chances of inducing a still 
farther change from the normal type, would be in¬ 
creased five or six fold, according to the number of 
different kinds grafted ; but, as I have said already, tho 
experiment was not completed, and the question remains 
open to this day, although I might have made a 
fortune by it long since. 
It remains for me now only to point the experi¬ 
ment out to others, and in doing so, there is a 
second experiment which I wish to connect with 
it, and one which is as likely as not to be of still 
greater use to British gardeners; 1 mean, that an 
attempt should bo made to cause the Chrysanthemum 
to seed with us as freely as the Dahlia; and why not? 
Our present plan of turning our plant into an annual, 
is one great causo why it does not seed with us, that 
cannot be gainsayed by anything we know of in 
physiology; a second cause of barrenness is, making 
cuttings from the suckers only. It stands to reason and 
science, if there is' any difference between them, that 
the blood, or sap, in a sucker of any plant whatever, is 
of the same degree, say of manhood, as that in the 
branches in the upper parts of the same plant. There 
is not the smallest question about the very different 
degrees of strength, ripeness, development, or man¬ 
hood, or whatever we choose to call it, in the sap of a 
limb, or branch, and the sap in a sucker fresh rising 
from the roots; then, if age, firmness of wood, or 
ripeness, and infirmity of constitution, by age, accident, 
or by the hand of man, are less inimical to fruitfulness, 
than youth, vigour, and bad blood, in the vegetable 
kingdom, we have the two to choose from, in the present 
system of propagating, and the mode of managing the 
Chrysanthemum, and in that which we followed in 1825. 
The inference is perfectly correct; but the result remains 
to bo proved. I have not the smallest doubt, in my own 
mind, but the present heads of Chrysanthemums may 
be kept alive and in good health, to bloom every year, 
as long as I live, or as long as a Gooseberry-top; and I 
can conceive the possibility of some of these heads, at 
least, arriving at manhood, when they may be as prone 
to seed in England as they are at present to throw up 
watery suckers, with which we are content to raise 
gaudy flowers from, and thus leaving the chance of good 
seedlings to foreign gardeners, under a better climate. 
The French, “ our allies,” were the first to find out the 
doubling propensity of Dahlias; and the Italians are 
now first on the list with Pompone Chrysanthemums at 
least; but who can say, that we, ourselves, will not 
excel them both, and all the rest of them, if we but go 
the right way about it. 
Do, or not do, the load lay heavy upon me for the last 
ten days or so, and I could not sleep comfortably under 
it. New Chrysanthemums we must have, some way or 
other; newshades,and new shapes, and, as tliooldRoman 
said, “ if you do not find a better way than mine, use it 
until you do.” Save a few of your choicest kinds, this 
winter, in the stove, or any where else, from the frost; re¬ 
move the suckers as fast as they come ; if the plants are 
three feet high, cutoff one foot, and so on in proportion to 
other height; if there arc many shoots, all tho better; 
