THE COTTAGE GARDENER ART) COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, Jcite 21, 1353. 
163 
full of tlic subject as if be liad never been in parliament, 
and just the same man as lie was thirty years ago, only 
not quite so young or so lark some. 
Speaking of flower-beds with so many lines, and such 
and such colours, made up of plants the most dissimilar 
in habit, leaf, and looks is all very well in our own day ; 
but in history our reports and our accounts of our age in 
gardening will only form the bottom—the foundation- 
stone of wonders. People will wonder some day at our 
lack of taste and judgment in the midst of such loads and 
loads of the raw material, out of which judgment could 
create and command taste itself. We go on from year 
to year as if judgment had settled what taste is, and that 
it stood iu no need of refining. Now follow me to-day, 
and go a-head yourself to-morrow ; fix in your mind what 
you really want; store in your memory a biographical 
digest of all the leading plants w T hich are now used in 
bedding out; and ask yourself this simple question. Is 
the art of man capable of rendering these subservient to 
my wants and wishes P I want all the plants in each one 
ol my beds to be exactly of the same style of growth; 
and i must have the colours to agree harmoniously, or to 
contrast without violence—a thing which may be explained 
by supposing a black Oak placed by the side of a white 
Scotch Fir. The contrast is complete in the colours; 
but the violence of the transition from the round-headed, 
gnarly Oak to the slim, sleek, spiral aspect of the Fir is 
so great as to drown the contrast between black and 
white : therefore, as the French dyer said, there is har¬ 
mony in contrast, and I must have it so. No Verbena or 
Calceolaria will do for me to divide a Tom Thumb from a 
Lucia Rosea, as was of necessity the ease in No. 59 on 
the top of the Rose Mount at the Crystal Palace. Another 
Geranium, whose flowers are as distinct from those of 
Torn and Lucy as the flowers of any Verbena can be, 
be first my aim, and then my fancy :—I must first bring 
such a Geranium into the world for such a purpose, then 
use it to demonstrate the purpose to the rest around. 
Thus you may argue and act in respect to every family 
from which a member is taken to fill up your beds : and 
to save you time and some vexation of spirit, allow me 
now to tell of the private history and domestic habits of 
one of the families with which you must largely deal— 
the Geranium family. Like the British family, there are 
three great sections—English, Irish, and Scotch. The 
greenhouse Geraniums, from which the Pelargoniums 
have come ; the Scarlets, or Horseshoes; and the miffy 
lot with gouty and fleshy roots. Not one from any of 
these divisions will cross with any one in the other two 
divisions. The divisions are, therefore, as natural as true 
genera for the purposes of the breeder. There is nothing 
in existence to prove that two plants from two natural 
genera have ever yet been successfully crossed; and all 
that has been said to the contrary is apocryphal. Such 
questions, therefore, as “What may I expect by crossing 
Tom Thumb with one of the Fancies P ” may be put on the 
shelf. The great divisions are also divided into sections; 
and there are plants in each section which will not cross 
out of that section, but these are too numerous to mention 
in a general view of the subject. There are Geraniums 
which will not cross nor seed but under peculiar circum¬ 
stances, and these are also too numerous to mention. 
The state of the plant at the time of crossing is a great 
mystery ; and the seedlings are materially influenced in 
their properties by the state of the parent at the time of 
crossing. Forcing a Geranium (a bedding Geranium) to 
get early seedlings has a very marked influence on the 
seedlings, which are invariably more flimsy than the 
parents would produce without forciug. The parents, at 
the time of crossing, should be fully established plants : 
not too strong, as in the open ground after the middle of 
August; nor too weak, as happens sometimes in May. 
The shoot should be stopped at the joint above the truss ; 
the first two flowers should be discarded ; the next four 
to be crossed; and the rest to be cut down as soon as they 
can be handled. The plant to be liberally and naturally 
treated all the time it is ripening the seeds. 
I). BkatojS'/ 
A FACT WORTH KNOWING IN CELERY 
CHLTURE. 
I have not planted out the first crop so early as usual 
this season; and yet, nevertheless, I have been asked 
several times if I am not afraid the plants will run before 
coming to table. Now, with my first crop, however early, 
I scarcely ever have a run-head. It is quite common, 
however, to see rows, or beds, with the great proportion 
of the plants bolted, when, of course, they are useless for 
the salad bowl. I think that,years ago, I directed atten¬ 
tion to the cause of this in these pages ; but, without any 
great stretch of egotism, I believe the subject to be so im¬ 
portant as to be worth restating. I am confirmed in this 
by two circumstances. The first is, that those who have 
followed the course indicated have expressed their satis¬ 
faction with the consequent success; and the second is, 
that I have had more inquiries about the matter than I 
can find time to answer privately. 
The great cause of failure with early Celery is just 
attending to the directions given in almost every calendar 
of operations. “Put a little earth to the Celery plants. 
Earth up the early Celery by degrees, giving a little at a 
time, and well firming it about the plants.’ We are not 
to be greatly blamed if we follow the highest authorities, 
even if such following should lead to failure. A person 
is very apt to meet with the reward of sarcasm, and pooh* 
poohing, if a little consideration should lead him to adopt 
and recommend a system directly opposite. W hat answer's 
best should he tried and followed, whatever be the voice 
of authority. One season, in the case of those who have 
early forward plants, trill determine the whole matte?. 
The “ eating the pudding is the best way to test the mode 
of making it.” Nevertheless, some people, and I hope 
many, like to see then’ way before them, and know the 
principle on which they are acting, whether it is making 
a plum pudding, or growing a Celery stick. Well, to make 
them just as wise as myself, I would request them to 
notice, in their country wanderings, whether they find 
wild Celery growing freely on the top of a dry bank, or 
in the bottom, or by the sides of a ditch or morass, where 
the roots can have free access to water. If the iormer, 
then the present general system of culture is right, and 
my idea is wrong; if the latter, then it almost amounts 
to conclusive evidence that the general mode of treat¬ 
ment is wrong. 
There can be little room for disputing that the Celery 
is naturally a ditch or morass plant, and, therefore, re¬ 
quiring abundance of moisture at the roots when freely 
growing. It is just as generally admitted that it is 
naturally a biennial—that is, sowing its seeds and growing 
one season, and blooming and ripening its seeds the next. 
Gardeners well know, that most biennials may be made 
to bloom in one year, by sowing early in extra heat, 
planting out, encouraging to grow, and then, from dryness 
or other means, so discouraging mere progression in 
growth as to prompt the plant, in self-defence, to throw 
up its flower-stalk. The extreme of fertility in seeds will, 
therefore, in general, be opposed to the extreme ot 
luxuriance iu growth. The same fact applies to the vege¬ 
table and the animal worlds. Plethora is opposed to re¬ 
production. 
Now apply these facts. There is no difficulty in getting 
the biennial Celery to throw up its flower-stalk the first 
season. This is such an evil, that many content them¬ 
selves with getting a stick of Celery after the long, cold 
nights have come in.- All their attempts to have it nice 
in August and September have onty given them bolted 
stalks. How was the feat accomplished? Thus:—the 
plants were sown in heat—say, in February or the begin¬ 
ning of March (I have, in years gone by, sown on the 
