502 
THE GARDENING WORLD 
April 10, 1886. 
surface soil stirred is known and understood by all. 
Going on to the autumn the question arises, is it 
better to lift and store the roots, or allow them to 
remain in the open ground ? I am in favour of the 
latter practice. I hold that they are less liable to decay ; 
while they keep far better than when lifted and stored 
away in sand, or any such material. Early in the year, 
if the ground has to he cleared, the roots must be lifted, 
and stored away for use. 
I suppose the Parsnip must not be included among 
the more aristocratic vegetables ; and yet it is most 
nutritious and wholesome. I think it ranks next in 
importance to the Potato, and, therefore, it is a vege¬ 
table that should be in every cottage garden. It is 
better than Cabbage, and especially the bastard and, 
in many respects, worthless Cabbages found in many 
cottage gardens. The pig-stye will furnish some 
suitable manure ; and the seed is cheap. 
In Guernsey and Jersey, in some parts of France, and 
also in the south of England, the Parsnip is cultivated 
for feeding cattle. All domesticated animals feed on 
them with avidity, and rapidly become fat. Cows fed 
with them yield butter of a fine yellow colour, and as 
rich as that produced from the finest pastures. Horses 
are said to be very fond of the roots, and poultry have 
been found to fatten well upon them. It is said that 
in the case of field culture the produce of the Parsnip 
is heavier than that of the Carrot, and it will succeed 
on a somewhat stronger soil. The Jersey or Guernsey 
Parsnip is the one used for field culture ; its distin¬ 
guishing charasteristics are its size, and being larger 
and thicker towards the top. I have said nothing 
about the Turnip-rooted Parsnip, as I do not consider 
it worthy of general cultivation.— Quo. 
-- 
ON PROPAGATING BEDDING 
PELARGONIUMS. 
Had I been asked the question some years ago, 
undoubtedly I should have replied without hesitating 
that August and September were the best months in the 
whole year for propagating; but I have since altered my 
opinion somewhat, and am now inclined to think that 
February and March is really the best time for this work. 
This might appear a strange freak to those who follow 
contentedly the old and well-beaten track of propagating 
in the autumn, and without the remotest intention to 
deviate ; but in gardening, above all other things, hard 
and fast rules cannot be too strictly avoided. A gar¬ 
dener should be guided by the weather, the locality, 
the resources he has to work upon, the demands made 
upon him, &c., more than anything else. The man 
who is content to follow what was practised by his 
great grandfather not caring to depart from old 
customs, but going on in a jog-trot sort of fashion, 
never troubling to try experiments or to find out any¬ 
thing new, that man will never be of great benefit to 
his brothers of the craft, nor will he ever make his 
mark in the wide world of horticulture. 
In this keen age for cut flowers, and in places where 
some of the produce have to be sold to help to pay 
expenses, such as labour, fuel, &c., bedding-out is a sore 
drag on the garden. I should like to see it banished 
altogether, and the beds filled with good herbaceous 
plants, of which there are plenty that would not only 
take the place of the bedding plants as regards the 
adornment of the garden, but would do for cutting 
also. Many gardeners nowadays have to do things the 
quickest way, the best way, the cheapest way, and the 
way which has the least trouble attending it; and as 
long as the bedding-out system does last, why not 
propagate the plants at a time when they would be a 
drag on our hands as short as possible ? I am inclined 
to think that spring propagation would effect this to 
some extent at least. 
The propagating season comes in in every garden, 
large or small, with August and September. "Whether 
there are only a few hundred plants required or some 
thousands, the cuttings are always put in about this 
time, either in pots or boxes, as the case may be. 
These are put outside or in cold frames until the 
approach of frost, when they are removed to shelves or 
stages in houses where frost can be excluded by means 
of artificial heat, and very often in houses which by no 
means are suitable for them, the cuttings being either 
too far from the glass, which makes them leggy, or, 
being too damp, causes a good many to rot off. The 
room these take up could be more profitably employed 
for wintering plants that would be useful either for 
supplying cut flowers or for room or conservatory deco¬ 
ration in the following spring and summer if the pro¬ 
pagation were left until spring, and the appearance of 
our beds in the flower garden would not be marred just 
at the time when they are generally at their best. 
In our very changeable climate, the prudent gardener, 
generally speaking, will not, even in the south, bed 
his plants out before the middle or latter end of May, 
and in cold exposed localities, and in the north, cer¬ 
tainly not before the beginning of June. And as 
June and sometimes July are often dry months, the 
plants—excepting where they are well attended to with 
water—do not fill up the spaces allotted to them before 
the end of July or beginning of August, and then to 
set to and take cuttings, as is often the case in the 
middle or end of the latter month, is, in a sense, nothing 
more or less than destroying the pleasure which should 
then be derived from them, and the room which they 
have taken up in the houses all through the winter, the 
time taken up in potting, watering, planting-out, &e., 
have been to a great extent wasted ; whereas, if the 
propagation were deferred until spring, all this would 
be avoided. The beds could be left intact until the 
approach of frost, when as many plants as would be 
deemed necessary to produce cuttings in the spring 
could be lifted, the long roots cut back (not the tops), 
and put six or seven in a 7-in. pot, or thickly planted 
in boxes and kept on the dry side until the turn of the 
year. 
There need not be any fear of them damping-off, as 
is the case wdth cuttings very often ; and by placing 
these old plants in a little heat they will very soon 
produce quantities of cuttings, which, if taken off and 
dibbled-in round the sides of pots, as close together as 
the size of the cuttings will admit,, and put in a propa¬ 
gating house on shelves or stages (they do not want 
plunging), or in any house that is kept at about 55° to 
65° at night, they will very soon root, and can then be 
piotted off singly, as is the case with autumn-struck 
plants, and placed in a Vinery or Peach-house at work, 
or, indeed, any house that is kept a little warm. These, 
if they have the point pinched out of them once, will 
make dwarf stocky stuff by bedding-out time far superior 
to those lanky things which were struck in the autumn, 
and which have often to be laid down at bedding time 
to give them anything like a dwarf appearance, and 
which have not given them half so much trouble as 
those propagated in the autumn. The old plants will 
again be put out, and when hardened off will do well for 
vases, &e., which are commonly employed in flower 
gardens and grounds. — Water Lily. 
--- 
HYACINTHS. 
(Concluded from p. 48 6 .) 
All the varieties have heen obtained from seed selected 
out of thousands of seedlings and by artificial crossing 
and impregnations, which is an occupation of very long 
duration, as a little bulb grown from seed requires six 
or seven years before it is of sufficient size to produce 
a good flower ; and when considering that this bulb if 
found worthy to be grown on requires twelve to fifteen or 
twenty years’ careful artificial propagation before a 
moderate stock can be had, it may not create astonish¬ 
ment if many times new varieties have realised 
large sums of money. New varieties in almost every 
shade of colour have been saved from year to year, 
showing improvement in size of spike, in size of bulb, 
size of bells, &c. ; but it may be worth remarking that 
in all the different colours we have obtained improve¬ 
ment in size of bells with the exception of the bright 
scarlet-coloured sorts, which until now have always 
turned out with small narrow bells. If we could obtain 
a Hyacinth flower of a bright scarlet colour like Queen 
of the Hyacinths or Garibaldi, with bells as large as 
La Grandesse or Cloche Magnifique, what a splendid 
improvement it would be, and pirobably in the course 
of time we may obtain this treasure. 
Between the time when double Hyacinths were most 
esteemed and the time when single varieties came into 
favour, a period of perhaps ten years, the always 
increasing demand was greater than the general stock 
could furnish, and consequently the prices of Hyacinths 
grew higher every year, and it was at that time 
a rather profitable culture. This induced a great 
number of farmers in the neighbourhood of Haarlem to 
try growing Hyacinths, which many have done with 
more or less success. At that time land was worth only 
half the price that it is at present, and the more easy- 
growing Hyacinths were then artificially propagated 
to such a large extent that the stock overgrew the 
demand, and during the last three years forced the 
market price of such sorts down to such low prices, that 
during the last two years thousands of Hyacinths have 
been exported abroad at prices below the actual cost of 
production, bringing great losses to the growers of this 
beautiful flower, while it overstocked the markets in 
several foreign countries where these bulbs were most 
used, to which poor circumstances the general depression 
in trade has of course contributed. 
Respecting the use made of Hyacinths, I may say 
that the greater portion of the bulbs are being forced, 
and for this purpose the bulbs should be potted about 
the middle or end of September in 5-inch pots in rich 
light soil, and placed in a cold frame or under a wall, 
where they can be covered with wooden shutters or 
some similar contrivance to keep off heavy rains. In 
either case they should be covered a foot thick with 
newly fallen leaves, and being once well watered after 
potting they may be left for months to form their roots, 
when the most forward should be brought out (some 
repot into somewhat larger pots according to the 
apparent strength), and the bulbs should be placed in 
a gentle heat as near the glass and light as possible to 
prevent the flower stems rising to an unnatural height. 
Some care is necessary in the application of this, or the 
flowers will be abortive. It should not exceed 50° for 
the first three weeks, hut afterwards may be increased 
gradually to 60° ; and if the pots are plunged into 
bottom heat the same care should be observed, or the 
points of the roots will certainly be killed. One-third 
the depth of pot is fully sufficient at first, and if the 
heat is brisk they should not be plunged more than a 
few inches at any time. 
When the flower stems have risen to nearly their full 
height, and the lower bells of their spike are beginning 
to expand, the plants should be removed to a lower 
temperature usually afforded by the greenhouse, and 
when the bells are fairly expanded, the plants can be 
taken to the sitting room or wherever their presence is 
desired, observing to protect them from sudden changes 
or cold draughts of air, and the water given to them 
should be moderately warm. 
Instead of the usual practice of drying Hyacinths at 
once in the sun, I would rather recommend the method 
adopted in this country—namely, to place them side 
by side on a sunny spot of ground, and cover them 
with about an inch of loose earth to thoroughly ripen 
the bulbs by the subdued heat imparted to the earth 
which surrounds them. Left in this position for a 
fortnight they will become dry and firm, and an hour or 
two’s sunshine will finish them properly for storing. 
The multiplication of Hyacinths can artificially be 
done in two different ways. (1) By the bulbs being cut 
crosswise and sprinkled with sand to absorb any super¬ 
fluous moisture that may exude from the incisions. 
After a time they are-planted in the earth in the usual 
way, when the mother bulb divides itself into small 
bulbs. (2) By scooping out the base of the large bulbs 
after they have been taken out in July. After this 
operation it requires great attention in watching care¬ 
fully the process of properly drying the wounded bulbs, 
because if this is not properly attended the whole bulb 
may become mouldy and be lost completely. The 
bulbs thus treated are planted in October, at which 
time the small offsets at the base of the bulb are partly 
visible already, and are then planted in the usual way, 
only with a slight covering of earth in a warm situation 
as much exposed to the heat of the sun as possible, 
where the small bulbs gradually develop in warm sandy 
soil, with the proper degree of moisture, aided by the 
climate, which about Haarlem appears to be so very 
suitable to the growth and development of this flower. 
(3) In the most natural way hy offsets from the parent 
bulb, which is, however, rather slow to meet the present 
large demand. 
The Tulips used for forcing require about similar 
treatment to the Hyacinths. "When placed in heat 
they should be placed as near to the glass as possible, 
in order to prevent the flowers from being drawn 
and the flower stems should occasionally be assisted 
when by their quick growth they get entangled in the 
foliage. During the last few years Tulips have become 
great favourites for planting out in beds, for which 
thousands are annually employed, making by their very 
brilliant colours a very showy effect indeed. I could 
dwell for a considerable time upon the history of the 
Tulip and the very unusual speculation, or rather 
gambling, which took place at a former period ; but 
in case my present paper should have met with your 
approbation, and might have given some little pleasure 
to my audience, it may induce me try another paper 
on these and other sorts of flower roots at some future 
occasion.— Polman Mooy. 
