98 
THE FLORIST AND POMOLOGIST. 
them. This may have led to the common plan of shading both Melons and 
Cucumbers during summer ; but by long experience I have found that they do 
best without it, and so do many other kinds of plants kept under glass. In fact 
glass, however clear, tends in some measure to shade or deprive plants of their 
proper nutriment through the agency of sunbeams. 
Cossey Park. J. Wighton. 
SOMETHING ABOUT STOCKS. 
• 
My neighbour Dalton is enthusiastic about Stocks. They are his hobby, 
and he rides it hard. He winters his Brompton and Queen Stocks better than 
any one else in our neighbourhood; and when those of others have been killed 
by the wet, or whatever else it is that plays such havoc among them, he points 
to his own plants, healthy and luxuriant, and chuckles over his better fortune. 
I think the great secret of his success lies in the observance of two rules ; 
the first is the provision of good drainage for the border on which he plants 
them, for he contends that too much wet at the roots is the cause of half the 
deaths in the neighbourhood (he alludes to the deaths of Stocks, good reader) ; 
and, secondly, when he transplants from his seed-bed to the border on which 
they are to flower, he is careful in the extreme (I think), not to disturb the 
roots in the slightest degree. In fact, in this last lies, in his opinion, the secret 
of his success. You would never argue him out of it, and of course it is use¬ 
less to try. I cannot succeed as he does, and I tried to be as careful as he is, 
and I gave up the attempt in despair, thinking that nature had not intended 
me for the special work of growing winter Stocks. His Brompton and Queen 
Stocks just now look as satisfactory as the most fastidious could desire to see 
them. 
Dalton does’nt believe in “ bedding stuff,” and I confess when I look on his 
charming Stocks during the summer months, my faith in some of the aspects 
of our modern systems of bedding-out becomes a little shaken. His large- 
flowering German Ten Weeks, his Giant Ten Weeks, his Intermediate, his 
Giant Pyramidal, and his Brompton Stocks, to him far transcend my Lobelias, 
Geraniums, Calceolarias, Cerastiums, &c., and he goes further, and thinks a 
spike from one of his scarlet Pyramidal Stocks much finer and much more 
attractive than the choicest bright colours of my pet Gladioli, and he carries 
the votes of the greater part of the neighbourhood. I pity his want of taste ; 
he, my infatuation. I give a good round sum for some of my choicer kinds of 
Gladioli; his most choice Stocks cost him but little, as he saves his own seed. 
I get no surplus bulbs to dispose of; he has really extensive transactions with 
his Stock seeds, and gets a good price indeed for them. 
Just now he is great in Intermediates, both scarlet and white, the latter 
being, however, a rather taller grower. His scarlet flowers are the envy of 
our neighbourhood, and would be greedily sought after in Covent Garden 
Market. He sows his seeds in the end of August and early in September, 
and winters his plants in a cold frame when potted. He is careful to have rich, 
but very fresh soil, and he is a great advocate for the use of a fine yellow loam 
that prevails in his neighbourhood. He has an original plan of his own in his 
method of cultivation, and I think many Stock-growers would be disposed to 
question the value of his system on theoretical grounds; but practically it 
produces the most desirable results. While there is always noticeable among 
his flowers a very large per-centage of double flowers, the single ones are care¬ 
fully tended for the sake of the rich harvest they bring him. The seeds when 
ready for sale are always large and plump, and seem suggestive of the vigorous 
plants they always produce. 
