THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
3 30 
nothing without brilliance in a bedding flower. Two 
I colours are quite enough if they contrast well; pure 
white, straw-colour, or yellow, for the tube, and the 
! more dim and unlike the colour of the lip is the better. 
On white any brilliant colour would do; -on straw or 
yellow it ought to be deep red, crimson, or dark-purple, 
the darker the better. 
Gladiolus and Carnations. —Every bloom dried up, 
past recognising. We strongly recommend all who send 
flowers to write the words “ Flowers for opinion ” out¬ 
side ; they in such case get opened directly and put in 
| water, instead of remaining among letters which we 
know take no harm for a day or two. The Gladiolus 
may open one of the flowers of the spike. The Garna- 
' tions cannot be noticed from the present blooms. 
Seedling 25 (G.). — Purple Dahlia, white tips, no 
better than many we have, and, therefore, useless. Seed¬ 
ling 31, petal too flimsy to be good for anything. 19, 
quills too much to be ever useful, except to those who 
dress them out; and we never will sanction a flower that 
wants it. The rest not worth notice. 
King of the Dahlias. —If thirteen blooms, and all 
showable, had been sent to us, and we had been informed 
that they all came from one plant, we could not have 
credited many people; but, as in company with others, 
we “ saw with our own eyes” thirteen perfect blooms 
of the King of the Dahlias on one plant, and seven or 
eight just gone by, we, in addition to calling it the best, 
may also call it the most certain of crimsons. The hot 
weather fault of the flower is a rib in the petal, but it is 
fully as necessary as Sir F. Bathurst, Fearless, or 
Princess Radzville. The specimen of the King shown 
at a certain meeting, put us in mind of old Gable’s trick 
of carrying bad specimens of any flower he wanted to 
burke or buy. If a gentleman cannot grow a flower, he 
has no right to show his miserable failures as specimens 
of quality; they are only evidences of his incapacity. 
M. T., X. Y. Z., and./. D., who have sent us specimens 
of the King, Barmaid, and Admired, to show their supe¬ 
riority, are thanked for their good taste. 
Hollyhocks (iff. D.). —None better than the sorts 
they come from, and not one new. ( P. M.). —The 
sulphur-coloured one is an advance in one respect—the 
colour, but a complete fall back in others; its flimsy 
guard petals spoil it. The others no use, except N. T .; 
seed from that, because it has very thick petals and 
florets, though not enough of them. 
Verbenas (C . /.).—All the petals too narrow, and no 
new colour. ( B. Y.). —A very large, but very ill-formed, 
variety, not worth naming. If the money offered by a 
nurseryman was offered in good earnest, take it. (J. S.). 
— Mrs. Mills and Orlando are better blues; but the 
specimen sent will not be the ivorst sent out, though 
small. 
Names of Dahlias. —No 1, Shyloclc; No. 2, Queen of 
the East, but a bad specimen; No. 3, Master G. Clap¬ 
ton ; No. 4, we do not know, unless it be Andromeda, 
out of character. We will not engage to give the names 
of single flowers accurately, unless perfect blooms, and 
accompanied with real name and address of the parties 
sending. One party, with only two letters to his name, 
has sent us a flower of Ne plus ultra, for our opinion of 
it as a seedling. This is too bad. We should like to 
know who played this unworthy trick; but we might 
have given our opinion of it as a flower, without satisfy¬ 
ing him whether we knew it or not. 
Dissimilar Blooms X. Y. Z. sends us two blooms 
that were in a winning stand, one a fancy the other a 
self, both being the same variety in different conditions, 
and asks whether the stand was not, if properly judged, 
to be disqualified ? Certainly not! The schedule sent 
says, twelve dissimilar blooms, and they are dissimilar. 
The Metropolitan Society’s rules govern all shows where 
the contrary is not specified. Now it is possible to dis- 
[August 28 . 
qualify a stand with two flowers too much alike; Fear¬ 
less, Admiral, Duke of Cambridge, and Queen of Lilacs, 
although very distinct in general, will often yield two so 
near alike that the judges have no right to puzzle them¬ 
selves to inquire. The different degrees of shading and 
growing will change colours and forms enough to make 
the approach a good deal too near. What is the object 
of having dissimilar blooms, but to make a variety? If I 
this is defeated by putting in flowers alike in general 
features, the shower ought to pay the penalty; but two 
flowers cannot be more dissimilar than the two sent. 
(1\ L.). —The Picotees can never be worth cultivating, 
they are barred on every petal, that is to say, have 
stripes in them three parts of the way down; and a good , 
many of them, a bar running half-way down the centre ! 
of each petal: but joining the feather at the edge would 
only make it worse; and bars which do not reach the i 
feathering, are fatal altogether. 
FLORISTS’ FLOWERS CULTURE. 
the pelargonium —( continued from page 309). 
At the above page we briefly described what we con¬ 
sidered the best form of greenhouse to grow pelargo¬ 
niums in for exhibition; we have nothing to add to 
that description, excepting a very few words about 
Heating it. The only heat wanted is just enough to 
keep out the frost, and the best mode of obtaining that 
heat is by hot water circulating in cast-iron pipes. They 
should be placed near, but not close, to the walls, and 
about a foot from the floor; placed in this situation the 
whole of the air in the house will be gradually heated. 
For a house of the size we have described, two four-and 
a-half inch pipes running round it will keep out any 
frost w r e are likely to have in this country. Should such 
an uncommon frost ever again take place as that in 
1838-9, it would be an easy matter to cover in the roof 
and sides of the house, so as to keep the plants alive 
and in good health. An ordinary saddle-shaped boiler 
is, w'e think, a simple but effectual one, and has the 
advantage of being cheaper, and lasting longer, than 
any of the more intricate inventions. As we said above, 
the only heat that is wanted is just enough to protect 
the plants from frost, more would injure them. 
The next grand point is to use the proper Compost. 
It may seem a trivial thing to mention this as an essen¬ 
tial article necessary to grow the pelargonium; to the 
inexperienced it may seem a matter of little conse¬ 
quence, any good garden-mould, as they call it, with a 
free use of rotten dung, will grow that common thing a 
geranium. This is wrong; there never was a more 
mistaken notion. Owing to this, and such-like careless 
usage, arises the disease called “ the spot,” and the pro 
duction of more foliage than flowers, with a coarse, 
strong growth, very unsightly. The compost we re¬ 
commend will, we believe, if rightly followed up, with 
the adjuncts of fresh air, proper watering, and keeping 
clear of insects, grow them to the highest perfection. 
Procure from an old pasture, where the grass is of a fine 
texture, as much turf three or four inches thick as will 
serve to pot the collection for one year; cast it into the 
compost-yard, and have it immediately chopped up into 
small pieces, and, as it is done, lay it up in a long ridge, 
facing east and west, so that the sun can shine upon 
each side morning and evening. The ridge or bank 
should not exceed two feet high, on a base of three feet 
wide. The grassy surface and green roots will soon 
begin to ferment during the process of decomposition, 
and the gases arising will penetrate to every particle of 
soil, and moderately enrich it, quite sufficient to grow 
geraniums. Let it be turned over every three months 
for a year, and then it will be fit for use. Unless it be 
very heavy, or of a close texture, it will not require any 
