138 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
October 30, 1886. 
living representatives. During liis investigation of the 
actual remains of primeval plants, Professor Heer dis¬ 
covered that a peculiar Pea of the Stone age, having 
small seeds, was afterwards superseded, while a small 
Bean of the Bronze age, did not survive the improve¬ 
ments of those Romans who applied the principle of 
selection to seeds, and with ‘ 1 industrious hand did 
yearly cull the largest.” 
As the greatest results of floriculture have been 
produced by hybridising, the amateur will naturally 
feel an interest in the methods pursued in cross- 
fertilising different flowers ; but the methods differ 
with the flowers, and could be described here satis¬ 
factorily. I propose, therefore, to mention how a 
number of ardent flower-growers master such details in 
the case of one of their favourite plants. About the 
year 1848 the Pansy began to attract attention as a 
flower for florists and for limited gardens, on account 
of its dwarf habit and abundant early blossoms. 11 was 
one of the flowers that working men were particularly 
attached to. Many persons of that class became keen 
Pansy-growers, and raisers sometimes of superior 
seedlings. In one of the manufacturing towns — I 
believe in Nottingham—a knowledge of hybridising was 
very opportunely diffused by means of a horticultural 
lecture delivered to a society composed mainly of work¬ 
ing men, the lecturer himself being a working man. 
Knowing the tastes of the members, he had carefully 
studied the parts of a flower as described in the Library 
of Useful Knowledge. He mentioned these parts, and 
proceeded to describe hybridising, when his audience 
evinced such extraordinary interest iu the subject 
that they sent one of their number to fetch a Pansy 
from his garden, and on his return the flower was 
dissected and the parts distributed. In that manner 
the Pansy-growers became acquainted with the art 
which many of them afterwards practised with success. 
The late Professor Henslow used to impart instruction 
to his village school on the same plan, offering to the 
humblest class of country people the same opportunity 
of instruction as when he lectured on botany before the 
Queen and Prince Consort and their children. He and 
other practical instructors, such as Charles Kingsley at 
Chester and at Eversley, have all resorted to the same 
methods of teaching botany and natural history by 
field clubs, and by the use of diagrams and natural 
objects in the lecture-room ; and in these days of 
schools and extended culture the hybridising of flowers 
and useful vegetables might be taught throughout the 
country in the same way. 
The size of seeds, as a permanent feature of improve¬ 
ment, cannot be modified so readily as the blossoms of 
flowers or the fleshy parts of vegetables. The conver¬ 
sion of the iEgylops ovata into Wheat by the French 
naturalist, M. Fabre, by means of a few years’selection 
and cultivation, has been shown to have been a myth, 
as was a similar supposed conversion of wild Oats in 
England a few years ago. But the student’s Parsnip 
of the Agricultural College at Cirencester was actually 
developed from the wild type. 
Even in agriculture, which is a comparatively dull 
pursuit, considerable modifications have been effected 
in regard to succulent vegetables, such as Turnips and 
a few forage plants, within the past forty years. With 
regard to gardens the inducements are larger, since 
objects of beauty usually command a better market 
than those of mere utility, and flowers are easily modi¬ 
fied. The Pelargonium, Mrs. Pollock, is said to have 
brought the breeder a small fortune, and the total 
revenue obtained from its sale by nurserymen must 
have been enormous. 
With regard to garden flowers, it is not, perhaps, 
generally known that their modification by breeding 
and selection, arts which have created “florist’s 
flowers,” and altered most others to some extent, has 
been the work of amateurs. Experts, undoubtedly, are 
employed in the great establishments of nurserymen 
and seedsmen, and very wonderful and mysterious are 
their ways. With their deft hands and their camel- 
hair pencils for the conveyance of pollen from the 
anther to the stigma, they can accomplish the work of 
fertilisation where bees and the wind—potent agents in 
thisway—have failed. We could mention a great propa¬ 
gating establishment for Orchids where the hybridiser, 
patient as he is skilful, records his operations and 
their results in a ledger. Thousands of little pots, 
each containing a seedling, are marked for reference, 
and not one of those seedlings will blossom in a less 
period than five or six years. The more one knows of 
the energy and skill of seedsmen and nurserymen, of 
the large amount of capital and enthusiasm embarked 
in their business, and of the services they have rendered 
to the gardening public, the more highly one must 
needs esteem them. 
But although the nurserymen have been the pay¬ 
masters of genius and the distributors of novelties, the 
work of improvement has been chiefly effected by 
amateurs, and I may add to this statement that one of 
the most accomplished hybridisers and breeders of Peas 
at the present time is a lady of the North of England. 
In the gardens of thirty or forty years ago, the beds 
were filled with what are called good old-fashioned 
English flowers, although they were, in point of fact, 
inferior to their successors. The bedding-out system, 
or the planting of brilliant flowers in geometric beds 
with tasteful contrasts of colours, as in our public and 
other gardens, naturally occasioned a necessity for 
changes of form and size. A Pelargonium, for example, 
might have a beautiful blossom and yet be unfitted for 
bedding-out in consequence of its straggling habit. 
Even the superb Fuchsias, native shrubs of America, 
and now flourishing in Australia, one of the lands of 
their adoption, frequently play their part in geometric 
bedding as small plants not exceeding 8 ins. in height. 
The Pentstemons, flowers from the New World, but still 
favourites of old-fashioned flower-gardens during the 
past half-century, have been considerably modified in 
recent years. The tall and straggling Antirrhinum has 
been curiously moulded, its latest development at the 
hands of the improvers being a little plant called Tom 
Thumb, whose large blossoms bear the same comparison 
to the original native Snapdragon—if it be a native, 
and it is certainly ancient—as the Tom Thumb 
Tropseolums do to the Nasturtiums of our kitchen 
gardens. 
-->*<-“- 
A POTATO TERCENTENARY 
EXHIBITION. 
We have a circular before us, that has been dis¬ 
tributed -during the present week, which states that 
“ An article in Nature , for May 6th, drew attention to 
the fact that this present year is the tercentenary of 
the introduction of the Potato into England, and dis¬ 
cussed some of the points of its history. Apart from 
the purely historic aspects of the question, ‘Whence did 
our Potato first come V it is shown that in connection 
with the suggestion of cross-breeding to strengthen 
against disease (Linn. Soc., vol. xx., p. 489) it is very 
important to know which is the species that for 300 
years we have been cultivating. With a view to 
drawing the attention of cultivators to the subject in a 
under and more popular way than the learned societies 
have done, it is proposed to hold a Potato Tercentenary 
Exhibition, at the St. Stephen’s Hall, Westminster, 
from Wednesday, December 1st, to Saturday, December 
4th, and to appoint one of those days for a Conference, 
when some of the unsettled questions may bo discussed. 
“The exhibition will consist of four sections:— 
1. A historic and scientific collection, to include early 
works on botany, in which the Potato is figured ; maps 
showing the European knowledge of the New World 
300 years ago, and the proximity of the Potato-growing 
districts to the ports most frequented ; early books on 
travel and voyages in which references to the Potato 
occur ; works and papers in which attempts to define 
the different species are made ; illustrations of the 
species and varieties ; eontemporaiy references to the 
voyages of Hawkins, Drake, Grenville, and Raleigh. 
2. Illustrations of Potato disease, and works on the 
subject. Sections 1 and 2 will be arranged under the 
advice of a committee of scientific gentlemen, who have 
consented to give their co-operation. 3. Methods of 
storing and preserving Potatos; methods of using 
partly diseased Potatos ; Potato products of any kind. 
4. A display of tubers of the various varieties grown. 
It is hoped that a nearly complete series will be shown. 
In this section Gold, Silver and Bronze Medals will be 
awarded. Each exhibit must be accompanied by a 
statement of date of planting, locality, nature of 
soil, &c. Full particulars will be found in entry form, 
to be obtained on application at the Office, St. Stephen’s 
Hall, Broad Sanctuary, Westminster, S. W.” 
Earl Cathcart is the President, and the following 
gentlemen are stated to have consented to act as a 
scientific committee of consultation, to co-operate with 
the executive, in relation to sections as below. 
1. Illustrations of the Order Solanacecc and the 
tuber-bearing species in particular. 
2. Batatas, Yams, Ignahames, &c., that in Eliza¬ 
bethan times were confounded with the Potato. 
3. Distinct species of tuber-bearing Solanums. J. 
G. Baker, F.R.S., F.L.S. (Kew). 
4. Cultivation by the Incas. Clements R. Mark¬ 
ham, C.B., F.R.S. 
5. Early cultivation in the British Isles. 
6. Cultivation at Chiswick. 
7. Cultivation of species at Kew. 
8. Cultivation at Reading and other places. 
9. Potato disease' (Phytophthora infestans de B.) 
George Murray, F.L.S. (Brit. Mus.), and Worthington 
G. Smith, F.L.S. 
10. Methods proposed for preventing the disease. 
11. Other diseases affecting the Potato. 
12. Chemistry of Potato and of Batata as food. 
13. Soils suitable for Potatoes, geologically con¬ 
sidered. 
14. Meteorology as affecting disease. 
15. Historic literature of the Potato. 
16. Maps showing European knowledge of the New 
World in Elizabethan times. J. Scott Keltie (Librarian 
R.G.S.) 
17. Raleigh. H. B, Y.’heatley, F.S.A. 
18. Drake. 
19. Hawkins. Clements R. Markham, C.B.,F.R.S. 
20. Other Voyages of Elizabethan reign. 
21. Heriott. 
22. Gerard. B. Daydon Jackson, F.L.S. 
23. Statistics of produce. 
--- 
§ARDENING fflSCELLANY. 
Th9 New Zealand Veronicas. —Your notes 
on New Zealand Veronicas in your last issue are far 
from complete. I have made a special study of these 
pretty shrublets for some years past, and now, thanks 
principally to the kindness of the director of the 
Botanic Gardens at Edinburgh, who is better acquainted 
with these plants than probably anyone in Europe, 
I possess a tolerably complete collection. The correct 
name of the variety you print as Pinqutefolia, is Pinqui- 
folia, the fat-leaved, and it is almost indistinguishable 
from V. carnosula ; indeed, I almost think that the 
former name is given as a synonym for the plant in the 
Botanical Magazine, where it is figured under the latter 
name, but not having my books over here, I cannot 
make sure on this point ; in any case, no one having 
the one need buy the other. Then the name you print 
ligustieifolia should, I think, be ligustrifolia, the privet- 
leave'd, which I consider to be a worthless variety, and 
have for some time discarded from my collection. The 
only one you mention, which I am unacquainted with, 
is buxifolia, and this I must see about aud add to my 
collection, if distinct. The other varieties which I 
grow, and which are not mentioned in your list, are 
V. anomala, most distinct, like a small decussata ; V. 
salicornioides, like a small Cypress ; V. Armstrongi, 
a smaller-leaved form of the trailing cliathamica, whose 
flower I not yet seen ; V. amplexicaulis, said to be very 
fine, but which is yet small with me ; V. Colensoi, 
most distinct in habit, but has not yet flowered. This 
I raised from seed sent me from the Botanic Garden at 
Christ Church, New Zealand. V. Haastii, quite dis¬ 
tinct, with broad leaves and pretty white flowers ; V. 
Lavandiana, whose flowers I have not yet seen ; V. 
lycopodioides, a most distinct and curiously-foliaged 
plant ; V. Colensoi glauca, quite distinct from V. 
Colensoi, and though sent me from the Glasnevin 
Botanic Garden must, I think, be incorrectly named, 
but cannot say for certain till it blooms ; V. Kirkii, 
a pretty variety which bloomed with me this year for 
the first time after growing it for seven or eight years, 
with pretty blush white spikes of flowers, with conspic¬ 
uous violet stamens. This plant is unknown at Kew, 
and they wrote to me for specimens for their herbarium, 
but too late to get them, as the plant had gone out of 
bloom. One of the best, V. Benthami, has yet to be 
introduced, and I hear of a most distinct and beautiful 
hybrid raised by a New Zealand nurseryman, named 
V. Fairfieldi, which we may hope to see some of these 
days in our gardens.— JF~. E. Gumbleton, Junior 
Carlton Club, Fall Mall. 
Dwarf French Marigolds. — 1 am obliged to 
you for your kind note respecting flowers of dwarf 
French Marigolds sent from here. I had lifted some 
plants into a big basket to take to South Kensington 
last week, but the tremendous rainfall here, in the 
morning of the show day, prevented me from taking 
them, to my regret. I was anxious to show both the 
quality of the blooms and habit of the plants, the 
latter especially, quite astonishing people who are 
