COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION. 
June 5. 
many of the fancy Geraniums; but there are none 
among the fancy,as far as I know, which have a natural 
turn for perpetual blooming, as Lady Mary Fox, for 
instance /therefore, it would bo the merest chance in 
the world to get a •Hybrid Perpetual between fancies 
and florists’ kinds. 
Between 1830 and 1844 or 1845, we had several 
sports from the florists’, which they and we have since 
all but banished from the gardens. The best known of 
these is Priory Queen, but all of them differed con¬ 
siderably from the general run, in flowering as freely in 
the autumn as they or any of the others did in May 
and June ; but they rested between the first and second 
time of flowering, which the true Perpetuals, as Unique, 
never do; still they would make a valuable step in our 
attempts for a race of true Hybrid Perpetuals; and, 
depend upon it, we need all the assistance within our 
reach before we can make an impression, as it were, as 
all our true perpetual-flowering Geraniums are very un¬ 
willing to seed, if they arc not absolutely barren. 
If Lady Mary Fox, Touchstone, Diadematum ru- 
hescens, Sidonia, Iynescens superha, and Unique, would 
but seed half so freely as Punch, or Tom Thumb, I would 
undertake, myself, to clear the whole garden of the 
present race of that breed, and plant whole beds of such 
brilliant and varied flowers as would put your shows of 
the best fancies of the present day entirely in the 
shade. 
By-the-by, allow me to remark, now that I think of 
it, that I have made a mistake, and a very serious one, 
some years since, and that others have since deepened 
the dye. At the present moment we have not a single 
plant of the true Unique breed in the kingdom but 
itself and the Shrubland Pet, after all. Our lilac, white, 
and scarlet Uniques are not Uniques, nor anything near 
it, but a slight resemblance in the mode of growth. 
They are all of them of the race of Iynescens, except the 
so-called White Unique, a name which was given by a 
pupil of mine, who left Shrubland Park, and sent me 
this one from Kent, by that name, avowedly as his own 
manufacture; but lie found it at a cottage without a 
name. This has three parts of the old Quercifolium 
breed in it, and no more. A little pale pink flower 
called Gapitatum is the great-great-grandmother of 
Unique, and Shrubland Pet is the only other plant in 
our gardens of the Gapitatum breed. For the present, 
the breed breaks there, and there is no pushing of it 
any farther, that I am aware of. 
There was no end to the breed of Iynescens thirty 
years ago. Lady Mary Fox is of that breed, and the 
best of it that ever I saw. It also is barren, or, at least, 
we do not possess the real male line with which it would 
breed. 
If Lady Mary Fox, or Unique, and all such, were 
transported to Madeira for three years, they would be 
very likely to breed there, after that interval, as freely as 
if they were genuine species. 
The race of Diadematum is also most difficult to seed ; 
but I have effected one cross in it which will bo a help 
to the breeder for Hybrid Perpetuals. I never knew 
one of that race which would not bloom from April to 
November, in-doors, at the beginning and end of the 
season, of course. 
But why follow the subject into those difficulties ? 
Why, indeed, but that I cannot otherwise see my way 
straight through to a new race of Hybrid Perpetual 
Geraniums. Such a race will be raised, that I am quite 
sure of; but if we do not break ground on a true scien¬ 
tific basis, depend upon it we shall be hampered at each 
step, and get into a circle again, and be no better off 
than the florists, who, however, have proved one great 
fact, which is, that in this order the Geranium tribe can 
be improved to the highest pitch of excellence by 
breeding in and in. Cross breeding may not do so 
157 
much in the same family in our times. Still, to have 
gay flowers all through the season would be a great 
triumph. 
Hybrid Perpetual Roses wanted the true scent for a 
long while, but now they are getting them more scented, 
and in time they will be as sweet as the Cabbage Rose. 
We, in our turn, may want points at first, which are 
now in high esteem in Geraniums, but ultimately all 
the points will come out as true as I write about them. 
We have now arrived at the very best time of the 
whole year for effecting difficult crosses in the Geranium 
family, which is done by a sudden check just before 
the flowers open, and that check we now give to all our 
bedders on turning them out into the beds, whether wo 
cross them or not. Therefore, there is not a day to lose 
in these experiments. 
If you have a particular Geranium which you would 
like to have seedlings from, begin on this wise—pick off 
all the open flowers, if it stood in the same house or pit 
with other Geraniums which might innoculate the 
flowers unknown to you; then remove it to a place 
by itself, turn it out of the pot, under a south wall, or 
some very hot place, and do not water it nearly so often 
as other plants, and keep the rain from it if you can. 
Dust the flowers as they open with their own pollen, 
and nine out of every ten seedlings from it will be as 
like the first plant as can be, and these are the best sort 
of plants to make pyramids with, as they make such a 
host of side-shoots—three or four times more than plants 
from cuttings would do. 
The next step is to get a new sort, and that must be 
by using pollen from a different kind; then the cross 
will be, in most cases, half from the mother side and 
half from the father side, and that is how we mean to 
get Hybrid Perpetual Geraniums. We plant out per¬ 
petual-flowering ones, which are all difficult to seed, 
and which will only seed with us under a sudden check, 
if even then, and try and get a cross between them and 
the best of the greenhouse kinds; that is the best for 
our purpose, as I have already explained. 
I have tried several ways of giving this sudden check 
| to shy breeders; but none of them have been so 
effectual as this at first turning out at the beginning of 
the soasons. 
When they have grown a little out-of-doors, or when 
they are growing vigorously in the greenhouse, it is 
next to impossible to seed them by any means that I 
know of. Sometimes you may possibly seed them by 
exposing them in the draught of air, on a front shelf, 
till the leaves droop two or throe times, or by shaking 
them out of the soil, and repotting them in smaller pots 
in poor soil; but then the seed has no germ and cannot 
vegetate. This led me to believe that a dry, hot 
climate would so ripen and harden the wood; and where 
they would hardly rest at all in winter, that fertility 
might be restored that way ; for the female organs seem 
perfectly developed and healthy, although we cannot 
fathom the reason why they fail to seed. There is some 
constitutional reason for their barrenness, rather than 
any impediment in the reproductive organs; but, what¬ 
ever the cause, we must overcome it before we shall 
establish a race of perpetual bloomers, and the present 
month of June is the only time this season which 
appears to me to be favourable to these experiments. 
There are other opinions on the subject; but I am not 
acquainted with their i-esults ; and any one may take an 
opposite view from mine. There is room for all con¬ 
jectures, and who ever succeeds will do service to the 
state of gardening. D. Beaton. 
