279 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY 
climate than was natural to the parents, hut after the 
bones and the rest of the “ fruit ” are ripe a warmer 
climate will hasten decay much sooner than a colder 
one. Just look at nine out of ten men returning from 
Australia after so many years. Are they not lean and 
lanky,looking as if they had barely escaped the jaundice? 
and yet, in the face of such plain evidence, men sensible 
in other things go on recommending emigration to Aus¬ 
tralia above all places on the score of health, long life, 
and happiness. But I say, and I hold it to be the truth, 
that our Canadian possessions are the best place we know 
of for making a man out of a slim stripling. He may 
get a pinch now and then it is true, and a blue nose 
occasionally, perhaps, before he is accustomed to the 
ways of the natives, hut he will never get either lean or 
lanky if he is not of a stock of that ilk by descent. 
Hence the reasons why I have always recommended 
Canada to gardeners and farmers in preference to any 
other country on the face of the earth, and I am glad 
that I have got this opportunity of explaining myself, 
because it has been urged against me that I have been 
all along swayed by feudal or clanish prejudices. 
Lady Head was one of our “great gardeners” before 
she went to Canada, and has seen little yet here which 
is much different from what was prevalent ten years 
since in high places in the disposition of our bedding 
plants, but she is amazed at the improvements we have 
effected in the races for the flower garden. The 
Geraniums for the mixed borders surprise her most of 
all; the Nosegay style of bedders she is delighted with, 
and for the moment I forgot that I was not discussing 
their merits with Lady Middleton. Mrs. Vernon will 
he pleased to hear that her namesake Nosegay Geranium 
and “that style” seem requisite to set off the glare 
of the “common scarlets.” There is a wonderfully 
deep meaning in that which ladies call “setting off.” 
Gardeners may dig and dive to the bottom of our craft, 
but, unless the eye is cultivated to set off whatever 
passes through their hands, whether it he for the pot or 
for the eye itself, depend upon it they are behind “ the 
spirit of the age.” “ But how would you set off a bed of 
Tom Thumbs to begin with?” asks Mrs. Grundy. Fill 
it brimful, and place it in the centre of anything, and 
that is the first degree on the scale—the lowest use 
which can be made of anything which is more telling in 
colour or in beauty than the rest. A hand of variegated 
plants round a scarlet bed will not improve it, or set it 
off’ to more advantage or more disadvantage as long as 
it forms the centre of a group of beds. The glare of 
scarlet will catch the eye, and keep it there to the 
prejudice of the other beds; and all the white in the 
world will not lessen the effect of the scarlet in that 
position, or help the scarlet to “set off” any one of the 
other beds, so on that account they gave up here in 
England, soon after the French revolution of 1848, the 
damaging effect of placing scarlets in the centre. But a 
light hand round a scarlet bed, or a bed of any strong 
colour, will set it off still better, besides producing a very 
essential help in some other cases which often occur, as, 
when bright purple or any shade of pink has to he placed 
next to scarlet, if the scarlet be not banded in white it 
is very apt to drown the pink and purple. Rising 
higher in the scale, the scarlet bed and the white hand 
are capable of being both set off to better advantage 
by a recent move, which began about the time they 
made Louis Napoleon Emperor of the French. Suppose 
two other beds of Geraniums to be placed near the 
scarlet bed with the white edging, and these two to 
he of a different colour, and the plants in them to grow 
differently from Tom Thumb , Tom or the scarlet is “set 
off” to the highest degree by contrast. Nosegays contrast 
in colour, shape, and style of growth with “ common 
scarlets.” Thus they, the scarlets, seem to look better, and 
their better looks help to “ set off” the very beds, the Nose- 
GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION, August 4, 1857. 
gay beds, which are setting off the scarlets at the same 
time. That is a fair glimpse of what ladies call getting the 
complement or full effect out of flowers by a proper 
disposition of their colours and of the styles of growth. 
Some of the greatest critics maintain that the highest 
style of beauty is in form, rather than in colour; but, 
without agreeing with them, that opinion itself shows 
how essential it is for us to study the form, or style of 
growth, as well as the colours of the plants we use, in 
getting at the highest branches of flower gardening; 
and these were the rules by which we were chiefly 
examined by Lady Head on the bedding system. 
The system of mixed borders, being more open to the 
“ pleasant mood,” was more discursively handled on this 
occasion; the only feature worth mentioning in our 
favour was the extent of our border Geraniuns, which 
“ struck ” even Lady Head. To be able to see fifty or 
sixty kinds of Geraniums perpetual bloomers on a 
border from frost to frost is indeed worth experimenting 
for. But how are we to keep them from the frost? is the 
next question; and the next is, Do you want more than 
so many of each kind ? and, if you do, which is the best 
way to increase them? 
Here, then, I have a new useful rule for many of the 
best English gardeners. It was suggested by Lady 
Head, who is going to take back to Canada, next Oc¬ 
tober, a full complement of seeds of all our bedding 
plants that can he depended upon. After raising as 
many seedling Geraniums as any one living, I affirm 
with confidence that every Geranium in England, if it 
will seed at all, will come as true from seeds as the best 
authenticated species from the Cape of Good Hope. 
To say that Geraniums will sport from seeds like Dahlias 
is only to admit mismanagement on the part of the cross¬ 
breeder. If you want to take Tom Thumb to New 
Zealand a packet of your own seeds will answer, 
provided that you take proper means to exclude all 
access of foreign pollen to the flowers; and the same 
with all other kinds. A gardener who can keep a few 
hundred seedlings in winter—seedlings of Geraniums, 
Fuchsias, Calceolarias, and Petunias to begin with— 
need not fear hut his seedlings will bloom next summer; 
and, although they may not he worth a straw in com¬ 
mercial value, they will he as gay as any one can wish 
in the flower garden or in the conservatory. 
There are two ways of crossing conservatory Geraniums, 
by either of which any man of ordinary industry may 
keep up the fashion in Geraniums for private use. The 
fashion is always to have new Geraniums, and I have been 
in this fashion for some years past, all my Geraniums 
being quite new. I have a thousand new Geraniums at 
this moment, some of which nobody has ever seen, and 
no one shall ever see hut myself, if that is any comfort. 
The first way is to cross the best of the French spotted 
Geraniums with the gayest-coloured English Pelar¬ 
goniums. Mr. Appleby’s lists of selections will now he 
useful in determining the kinds. Some of them seed 
and some do not, and in others their seeding depends on 
the kind of treatment they receive; therefore to say 
which should be taken and which left might do as 
much harm as good. The second way is to cross 
bedders and borderers, or perpetuals, with the rich and 
gay colours of both English and French fancy kinds. 
The pollen from the bedders will not give so many 
perpetuals as the pollen, of Pelargoniums applied to 
those which are known to he perpetuals. To give a 
recent instance, the seedling which came out lately under 
the name of Crimson King is now in bloom within a 
yard of my elbow, and I see it was raised from Gauntlet. 
Gauntlet , therefore, must be a very good mother of 
perpetuals, notwithstanding its bad habit of gawkiness, 
if a “stocky” growing plant is chosen for the pollen 
parent, which must have been the case with the father of 
the Crimson King. The bad habit is lost without hurt to 
