April 15 , 1893. 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
515 
Bizarres, with three or four colours in irregular spots 
and stripes; Piquettes, spotted or pounced on a 
white ground, with scarlet, red, purple, etc.; and 
Painted Ladies, red or purple above and white 
underneath. Previous to this time the Piquettes 
were the favourites, but about 1759 the Flakes were 
held in most esteem. 
The old florists in those days understood the cul¬ 
tivation of Carnations well. They propagated them 
by seeds to obtain new kinds and by layers to per¬ 
petuate good ones. The good varieties were named 
exactly on the same lines as they are at the present 
day ; and the promising ones were grown upon trial 
for two years to make sure of determining their actual 
qualities and value. Single and badly coloured 
flowers were at once rejected. Pod-splitting varieties 
with large flowers were as troublesome then as now, 
but they were grown in pots and tended with great 
care, while the smaller flowered but otherwise meri¬ 
torious sorts were planted out in borders. I cannot 
here enter into detail in the matter of cultivation, 
but a very practical hint offered by' Philip Miller is 
worthy of note. He proposed to have a bed of 
plants solely for layering, and prevented from flower¬ 
ing so as to get good layers to ensure large flowers 
every year. The layers for the stock of flowering 
plants were to be taken from fresh soil, and rather 
poor than otherwise, so that the plants might be in 
better health. He noted also that varieties 
raised from layers a number of years tended to be 
seedless, and so advised the raising of new sorts 
from seedlings. 
Even then hybridisation was not unknown, 
although the old florists do n’ot, as a rule, get much 
credit for their knowledge on that score. They 
possessed a strain of hybrid origin which they termed 
Sweet Johns, derived from the Mule or Fairchild's 
Sweet William, and which was obtained from a 
Carnation crossed with a Sweet William. 
The Piquettes, in 1578, had become the Picotees 
of florists in 1818 or earlier. At this time we hear 
of the Yellow Piccotee. A batch of them raised 
from German seed was exhibited before the London 
Horticultural Society on the 21st of July, 1818. 
They were chiefly yellow with different shades of 
crimson, scarlet, purple, slate, and black. One of 
them measured 11 in. in circumference, so that we 
cannot be said to have made much progress in that 
respect. Evidently they were in these days as near 
the possession of a blue Carnation as we are, not¬ 
withstanding our varieties, showing grey, heliotrope, 
slate, and other hues of that kind. The yellow 
ground Picotees of to-day are then merely a revival 
of what existed seventy to ninety years ago. The 
old florists made a bold effort to grow the beautiful 
yellow Picotees, but found that their weak constitu¬ 
tion was unable to cope with our fickle and ungenial 
climate. 
The recent revival of this class and the raising of 
seedlings from home-saved seed is a step in the 
right direction, and lead us to hope that stronger 
constitution will yet be secured. The white ground 
Picotee of the present day with its heavy or narrow 
wire edge has been refined and brought to its present 
state of perfection, from the old pounced or spotted 
Picotees, within the last twenty years. 
. Pinks. 
The garden Pinks, like the Carnation, are not natives 
of Britain, but are naturalised in some parts of 
England. The flowers were as various in colour as 
Carnations as early as 1578, but double forms were 
unknown at that time, and as they w^ere only planted 
in gardens, they must have been introduced from the 
Continent. Time forbids entering into a history of 
the Pink (Dianthus plumarius), its variation and 
popularity at different epochs of its culture. Recent 
attempts have been made to revive its popularity; 
but some new departure will have to be made to give 
it fresh impetus. In the most refined and laced form, 
and strictly as a florist’s flower, it can never be 
appreciated and cultivated by the million. In-breed¬ 
ing and continual propagation by cuttings weaken 
their constitution and make them difficult to 
purpetuate. 
Self-coloured varieties of Carnations, for border 
culture, yellow-ground Picotees, as well as white 
ground varieties marked much in the same way as 
the "pounced” Picotees of the old florists’, have 
given the cultivation of Carnations a fresh impetus 
within the last few years ; and Pinks might gain 
largely by being treated upon the same lines. Self- 
coloured flowers of distinct hues and fine form, 
fragrant, and produced in quantity by healthy 
plants of strong constitution, would enable them to 
be enjoyed by the mass of the people, and cultivated 
by all possessing gardens in suitable positions. 
Chrysanthemums. 
Chrysanthemums have been cultivated for ages by 
the Chinese and Japanese so that when we first 
became acquainted with them they were already in a 
highly improved state. A small form made its 
appearance in the Chelsea Botanic Garden in 1764, 
and a large flowered variety, known as the Old 
Purple, and imported from China, was grown in the 
same neighbourhood in 1789. By the year 1824, 
eleven varieties of Chinese Chrysanthemums had 
been figured in botanical and other works in this 
country. Sabine, in that year read a paper at a 
meeting of the London Horticultural Society 
describing twenty-seven varieties grown in the 
gardens at Chiswick. They had been trained to a 
south wall in the arboretum and flowered there. 
The variability of the flowers grown under different 
conditions in the open air and under glass some¬ 
times led cultivators to consider some of the variations 
as distinct, just as occasionally happens even yet. 
The difference in colour and occasionally form 
between the blooms from " crown ” buds and those 
from "terminals” is very remarkable in some 
varieties. 
An amateur in Jersey raised a batch of seedlings 
which found their way to Vauxhall, and were 
exhibited before the public in 1836. About this 
time the incurved form made its appearance. 
Under the name of the Chusan Daisy the original 
parent of the Pompon race was sent home by 
Fortune, and the first blooms were shown at a 
meeting of the London Horticultural Society in 
1846. The National Chrysanthemum Society, which 
has had no small share in the development of the 
Chrysanthemum, had its origin in the society formed 
at Stoke Newington in 1847. 
In the years i 85 o to 1862 inclusive, Fortune sent 
home the first of the Japanese forms. For some 
time the florists of those days were prejudiced 
against them. Now they are the most popular of 
all the races of Chrysanthemum all over the world. 
It is calculated that in Britain alone there are 
100,000 cultivators of Chrysanthemums. The 
history of these as well as all other flowers shows 
that they must take the public fancy independently 
of florists’ rules and regulations, after which their 
culture will extend. The show boards originally 
intended for Dahlias and utilised for exhibiting 
Chrysanthemums are now found to be too small to 
show off the larger of the Japanese types to the best 
advantage. 
The raising of incurved varieties lapsed for many 
years in this country, and the only new ones 
exhibited were sports from old sorts. There are 
signs of the practically lost art being revived. The 
raising of seedlings of new Japanese varieties by 
English florists has also been making rapid progress 
within the last few years. The incurved Japanese 
types were much in evidence last year, and are likely to 
increase. The formality of the true incurved type 
greatly limits variety, not only on account of its 
shape, but also because the upper surface, although 
the most highly coloured as a rule, is hidden. The 
September and October flowering habit of a large 
number of the new varieties, whether home raised 
or of Continental origin, is also a striking feature of 
the Chrysanthemum and its progress in the last 
decade of the nineteenth century. The small 
Japanese varieties, such as Elaine, Baronne de 
Prailley, Belle Paule, Bouquet Fait, Flamme de 
Punch, Jeanne Delaux, Lady Selborne, Fair Maid 
of Guernsey, Madamoiselle Lacroix, and others, 
that were so popular ten years ago, are fast dropping 
off the show boards and into comparative oblivion, 
except where they have been found useful as cut 
flowers for market purposes. 
A fact bearing upon the culture of the Chry¬ 
santhemum, and now pressing itself upon the atten¬ 
tion of the cultivator, is that cuttings for the 
following year’s stock of plants should never be 
taken from plants that have been highly fed or 
forced by means of stimulants for the production of 
huge blooms, because their constitution has been 
greatly weakened and undermined thereby. Such 
cuttings are more difficult to root, and plants grown 
from them are relatively weak. . Philip Miller gave 
us a similar hint with regard to Carnations con¬ 
siderably over 100 years ago. 
(Meanings ftinnt flit* tlDnrlb 
uJSrtcncf. 
The 1 nee unden which Livingstone died._ 
A bronze tablet has at last been affixed to the tree 
under which Livingstone died, after a period of nearly 
twenty years. 1 he tablet was the gift of his daughter 
and son-in-law. This was entrusted to Mr. Arnot, 
a missionary, who also carried with him a handsome 
present from the Geographical Society for Chitambo, 
the chief of the district. Mr. Arnot failed to reach 
Lake Bangweolo, the goal of his journey, and the 
object of the mission was accomplished by Lieu¬ 
tenant branqui, of Captain Bias’s expedition. By this 
time the chief of the district was dead, and his son 
had removed the village about twenty miles to the 
westward. The inscription on the tablet was also 
discovered to be partly erroneous, inasmuch as 
Livingstone died inKalinde and not in Ilala as stated. 
It would, moreover, be interesting to know the 
botanical name of the tree under which he died in 
that wild part of the world. 
Grooved leaf-stalks. —In a large proportion of 
flowering plants the leaf-stalks are grooved on the 
upper surface, and dilated at the base clasping the 
stem. The significance of this has been the object 
of a long series of experiments and observation by 
Professor Nelson of Wyoming University. In the 
monocotyledonous class of plants the stem is often 
short and the leaves relatively large, or the latter are 
crowded on the top of tall stems as in the Palms. The 
long petiole is for the purpose of exposing the large 
leaves to a due share of light, and the professor goes to 
state that the petiole gains strength by being dilated at 
the base and hollow along the upper surface, in accord¬ 
ance with a well-known mechanical principle. The 
grove, however, does not always exist even amongst 
Palms, the petiole of which is often flat on the upper 
surface. 
Moreover, the shape of the petiole generally 
depends on the distribution of the fibro-vascular 
tissue, and that again upon the form of the leaf 
blade. The length of the petiole does indeed depend 
upon the size of the leaves and their arrangement, 
and the dilated base often serves the purpose of pro¬ 
tection as well as strength. The professor believes 
that the groove is a mere survival amongst Dicoty¬ 
ledons ; but such may also be the case amongst 
Monocotyledons. In either case we may assign 
valid reasons for their survival at the present day. 
The professor also states that the groove in the leaf¬ 
stalks of the former serves to carry water to the bud 
in their axil. 
Fermentation of Farmyard Manure. —Some 
very useful hints on the making and use of various 
kinds of manure in " Manures, how to Make 
and Use them,’’ by Frank W. Lempers, director 
of the Fordhook Chemical Laboratory, America. 
He therein states that much has yet to be learned of 
the exact changes which take place in the fermenta¬ 
tion of manure. Some of the micro-organisms which 
bring it about can only flourish when they have 
free access to the air, others can live in the absence 
of free air, some require an abundant supply of 
moisture, while others thrive where they are' kept 
moderately dry. The kind of fermentation that 
goes on therefore depends upon the kind of micro¬ 
organism at work. When farmyard manure ferments 
slowly, the oxygen unites with some of the carbon 
forming carbon-dioxide, which passes off into 
the atmosphere ; but if the heap is kept tolerably 
moist, ulmic, humic, and other organic acids are 
formed. 
The nitrogen combines with hydrogen forming 
ammonia, which unites with the above named acids, 
forming ulmates and humates, etc., which are very 
soluble in water. Should the manure be too dry 
and ferment rapidly so that the temperature rises 
above 150° F., water is driven off and the manure 
burns forming carbonate of ammonia, which passes 
off into the atmosphere and is thereby lost. The 
brown liquid which runs away from the heap is rich 
in nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash, and when 
this is allowed to continue the most valuable consti¬ 
tuents of the manure are lost. 
The Carnation: its History, Properties, and Management, 
with a descriptive list of the best varieties in cultivation. By 
E. S. Dodwell. Third edition with supplementary chapter on 
the Yellow Ground. London : Gardening World Office, 1, 
Clement’s Inn, Strand, W.C. is. 6 d.; post free, is. 7d.— [Ad. 
