10G 
THE FLORIST AND POMOLOGIST. 
[July, 
From the blooming of the Apricot down to 
that of the Apple w r e have had a succession of 
wave after wave of either frost or cold in some 
form, which has left us—not altogether fruitless, 
but in a very different position even as regards 
Apples, to what we were a short time ago led 
to expect. There is a saying that we should 
never “holloa before w r e are out of the wood.” 
As regards fruit prospects I feel some of us 
are at times a little bit guilty of premature 
anticipations. 
Another Nectarine, the Prince of Wales, 
we have tried in our third house, hut after 
three years trial I am unable to form any 
good opinion of the Prince in this form. He 
is shy to set, and when even in a few cases 
this has been effected and swelling takes place, 
he withers and drops off; w r hen further ad¬ 
vanced withering and splitting of stone con¬ 
tinues, and so this character follows up even 
to the time of the ripening of the fruit. The 
tree itself is in perfect health, and as a splendid 
specimen of training is one of the finest in 
our collection. —Wm. Miller, Combe Abbey 
Gardens, June 18, 1883. 
DWARF GERMAN SCABIOUS 
Poe Cutting. 
i7\ VERY gardener who has to provide a 
[fJ quantity of cut flowers should grow a 
bed of these useful plants, for they 
yield a vast supply of blossoms, double, 
durable, and of many pleasing colours. Plants 
raised from seeds in July and August, planted 
out, will yield an abundance of flowers through 
the summer, and up to the time that frost 
and fog end their floral service for the season. 
And a supply should also be grown in pots 
from seeds sown in July, to flower in early 
spring in a vinery or greenhouse, after winter¬ 
ing them in a frame. But the latter require 
to be grown on somewhat rapidly, so as to 
have the plants of good size by Christmas. 
The plants should be placed singly in large 
60 pots, and shifted until they are in 32 sized 
pots, keeping them clean and healthy, and 
especially stocky and bushy. They must be 
well looked after in the matter of watering. 
These plants would flower all the winter if 
they had the assistance of a little heat, and 
the act of cutting causes the plants to break 
out into fresh growths that produce flowers. 
I saw some plants in pots a few days ago 
that occupied a vinery, and they were bearing 
beautiful flowers, far finer than can be had 
from the open air, charming as they are, in 
July and August, and the flowers colour 
grandly under glass. There are about eight 
distinct varieties that will well repay cultiva¬ 
tion, and they are all very fine. Perhaps the 
best thing would be to obtain one of the Con¬ 
tinental collections containing eight or ten 
varieties, and the grower would be pretty 
certain to get all he could desire. 
A good free soil, rather light and fairly 
rich should be used, and the pots pretty well 
drained.—R. Dean, Ealiny. 
MAIZE TO MATURITY. 
(Concluded from p. 71.) 
HE result of crossing different varieties 
is very interesting and highly variable. 
Forms and colours of the grain are 
readily mingled, and often very curi¬ 
ously. For instance, in crossing a large 
round corn with a very much wrinkled variety, 
known, I think, in America as “ Sugar Corn,” 
the cross has appeared, not in a uniform 
blending of the parental forms, but side by 
side the grains have elected to take purely 
after the one or the other, and some are 
perfectly round, while others are perfectly 
wrinkled, and all equally vital. Crossing 
these again with a variety of variegated grains, 
the colours are imparted more or less over 
the round and the wrinkled seed. 
I should like to record here a curious dif¬ 
ference that I think I have marked between 
obtaining a cross in the size and form of 
grains, and between a cross in colours. Zea 
gracilis is a yellow variety of exceedingly 
small grain, no larger than split pearl barley. 
The plant, however, grows tall, and produces 
a large number of very pretty golden heads. 
I was anxious to keep it true, but having no 
pollen of its own ready, I had to use some 
from a large yellow. No effect was produced 
from this upon the size of the grain that then 
ripened ; but of course the plants raised from 
that seed were evidently cross-bred. But when 
I have crossed for colour’s sake, and fertilised 
a pure self variety—say white, yellow, or 
red—with pollen from a variegated sort, or 
grain of different colour, I have noticed the 
cross in the current year’s seed; the pollen 
seems to have influence over the colours 
