i'HE COTi’AGE GAEDEh’EE, AND COUiNTltV GENTLEMAN, Amur. 12, 1859. 
1G 
highest castle in these parts—the Castle of Industry. As 
long as a pilgrim is on a journey lie has not wrought out 
his destiny; but every stage of the journey brings him 
nearer to the point. And so it is with a “ llosc-leaf,” or 
petal. Other parts of the same flower arc on the common 
journey to the Castle of Industry : but the petal is four 
stages farther on tlfe road than the stamens ; the stamens 
arc eight stages a-hcad of the pistils; and none of the 
parties ever alter a mile, or a minute, from these differ¬ 
ences, whether they are more or less than I say, of the 
Hose party. Every stage of the way must be reached 
just as science demands; but whether by rail, or coach, 
or pack-saddle, or by trudging it, remains to be discovered 
to this very day. 
The seaside, from which the different parts of a flower 
started, is the root of the plant. They arc in the great 
deep ; and the Castle of Industry, to which they are all 
going, is the loaf. A petal, therefore, is a leaf on a certain 
stage of a journey ; aud so arc a stamen and a pistil. 
What we want to find out is, some contrivance to bring up 
the rear, some fine morning, before those in advance have 
started for the day’s journey ; get up the stamens and 
pistils before daylight; push them on with all speed, in 
order to reach the stage where the petals “ put up,” 
before the latter depart on the last stage of the journey 
to the said Castle. And when we have them all at that, 
the last restiug-stage on the journey, we have a perfect 
and complete double flower, and one which will never 
seed. 
When you hear of a double flower producing seeds, 
you may rely on it that all the parties on that journey 
were never brought simultaneously to the same stage as 
the petals. The pistils, being the farthest behind on the 
journey, or some stragglers from their ranks, must have 
remained behind; else there would be no seeds. Nothing 
can be more easy to learn than the way science points out 
from that sea to the Castle; and nothing seems more 
difficult of understanding than the means of conveyance 
by which the mile, or the minute, could be bridged over 
in one instant. The reason why science cannot suggest 
the exceptional mode of conveyance is, because it knows 
very well that the same relative strengths with which the 
different, or three, parties to a double flower started on 
the journey, are held intact by the same power which 
furnishes the necessary supplies at each stage; so that, 
in the endeavour to push up a stamen or a pistil to the 
front, the front itself must be in motion at the same time. 
Then the result would be, in consequence, no flower at 
all; but all the parties would be pushed on to the final 
stage of development—to the condition of leaves. When 
the flowers, and parts of the flowers, of fruit trees get 
into this first development there is no fruit. All the 
parts get up to the Castle at once, where they arc free as 
air. The way to make fruit, one would think, might also 
be the proper way to make double flowers: but it is not 
so. You never heard of an Apple or a Pear tree being 
operated upon to make it fruitful. 
Turn up any of the flowers more than in the usual 
degrees of travelling comparison—near, nearer, nearest. 
The pistil is nearly a leaf; the stamen is so more nearly ; 
and the petal the nearest of all. Science and practice 
join hands here ; for they arc now, for the first time, on 
their journey to put up at the same stage for the night. 
Their day is spent, their lodgings are not comfortable, 
and both of them will be certain to dream,—dreams are 
fulfilled contrariwise. Any one who might hear their 
dreams would have a chance of double flowers, by doing 
the single ones exactly contrary to what the philosophers 
and the practical gardeners were doing them in their 
dreams. 
Now, here is a chance. Who will gather up the dreams 
and compress them into a four-column article for The 
Cottage GaedenehF I am exempt from that task. But 
what would be said if I should turn round and advocate 
the claims of empiricism—the claims of the emperor of 
the thumb rule P But fair play is a precious jewel, and 
I shall see fair play done, if 1 lose caste for it. 
Now, then, where is the man who has yet produced 
more double flowers than the emperor of the thumb rule? 
Where, indeed! Who made the double llepaticas, the 
double Auriculas, the double Polyanthus, the double 
Cowslip, the double Daffodil, the double Clove, Pink, and 
Primrose, the double Bose itself, and the best and most 
numerous of all the double flowers in the world P His 
majesty of the thumb rule did them all. One leaf out 
of liis book would be worth all the scientific disquisitions 
and dreams put together; because, with our present know - 
ledge, we could soon learn to account for the reasons of 
success. IIis majesty is most affable, and I have been 
under many obligations to him; and I shall here, for once, 
at all hazards, advocate his principles, and I shall continue 
to do so from this day to the end of my life ; unless, in 
the mean time, the reformers of his plans,—the doctors 
and great guns of our own system,—will give us cause 
and proof of a more simple way of getting our aims 
double. But Mr. Woolcr, of Darlington, has got a-hcad 
of me at page 6 of the current volume; and those who 
would excel in the line must read what he says. I have 
been of the same mind as he is for a long while, and I 
did intend to write something on the subject; but I did 
not mean to go so far as to put a dead stop to our just- 
practical notions till I read Gilbert’s “ V ade Mec-um,” 
and ho convinced me that a dead stop should take place 
between practice on principle, and practice by the rule-of- 
thumb. But let us take the Polyanthus first. 
Mr. Wooler got some of them half-double by grow ing 
the seedlings in very rich, light soil in pans. In rich, 
free soil, I raised nearly three thousand seedling Poly¬ 
anthuses within the last four years, and there is not a 
vestige of doublencss in any one of them—except one 
hose-in-liose kind. I had to send them out to bloom after 
the second season; and some five or six hundred of them 
are not yet reported on from a duke’s gardener, to whom 
I appealed to give me a lifting hand; but I do not ex¬ 
pect to hear of a single one of them being double, as an 
Irishman would say. Two thousand of the seedlings were 
from one plant of Polyanthus, to see if, out of so many, 
one should turn out to be the same as the parent. No 
one did, unless it be with the duke’s gardener. Three 
pips of a Polyanthus were sent to mo last week from 
London to judge them; but I am no judge of pips. I 
must see a whole truss. I said so to one of the Editors, 
and sent him a truss of my plant—the parent of the two 
thousand seedlings—to sliow r w hat I meant for a proper 
judgment on a new Polyanthus. “ Good gracious ! what 
a Polyanthus!” was the beginning of the letter which 
w r as returned about (he pips. But it produced no double 
flower, or one like itself; and I conclude that the best 
gardening, assisted by science, is inimical to the pro¬ 
duction of double flowers : and, knowing that haphazard 
gardening, with no light from science, had succeeded in 
getting many kinds of double flowers, I have come to a 
fixed resolution of recommending the rule-of-thumb in 
that particular branch. 
The next spit, below' the turf spit, in a meadow or 
bank, is the soil that was used in the time of empiri¬ 
cism. Soil fresh, but free from all roots and fibres—the 
molehills of early days; the most cooling dung—such 
as that from cows in the last stages of decay — was 
then very freely used; and the compost was made as 
fine as the sieves or screens could make it; and no 
drainage, beyond one piece over the hole in the pot, 
was used. 
Another practice was, to sow the seeds of Polyanthuses, 
Auriculas, and other florists' flowers in the autumn, in 
boxes, with the top soil made as fine as brown rappee 
snufl ; and that below as much so, and as close as barley - 
mcal in store. These seed boxes w ere kept out of doors 
all winter, with some little protection from frosts and • 
splashing rain, aud the seeds vegetated not till the spring. 
