ostly of an abnormal shape,
which is so striking that experienced cultivators are able to separate
those which would furnish double flowers from those which would produce
single ones."

M. Chate's method, which he calls the French one, gives still greater
results, viz.: 80 per cent. of double flowers, and these produced by
very simple means. "When my seeds," he observes, "have been chosen with
care, I plant them, in the month of April, in good dry mould, in a
position exposed to the morning sun, this position being the most
favourable. At the time of flowering I nip off some of the flowering
branches, and leave only ten or twelve pods on the secondary branches,
taking care to remove all the small weak branches which shoot at this
time. I leave none but the principal and the secondary branches to bear
the pods. All the sap is employed in nourishing the seeds thus borne,
which give a result of 80 per cent. of double flowers. The pods under
this management are thicker, and their maturation is more perfect. At
the time of extracting the seeds the upper portion of the pod is
separated and placed aside, because it has been ascertained that the
plants coming from the seeds situated in this portion of the pod, give
80 per cent. of single flowers. They yield, however, greater variety
than the others. This plan of suppressing that part of the pod which
yields single flowers in the largest proportion, greatly facilitates the
recognition of the single-flowered plants, because there remains to be
eliminated from among the seedlings only from 10 to 15 per cent.

This separation of the single from the double-flowered plants, M. Chate
tells us is not so difficult as might be supposed. The single stocks, he
explains, have deep green leaves (glabrous in certain species), rounded
at the top, the heart being in the form of a shuttlecock, and the plant
stout and thickset in its general aspect, while the plants yielding
double flowers have very long leaves of a light green colour, hairy, and
curled at the edges, the heart consisting of whitish leaves, curved so
that they enclose it completely. Such is the substance of M. Chate's
method of securing so large a proportion of double-flowered plants, and
then of separating them from the remaining single ones--a method which
commends itself to the good sense of the intelligent cultivator."[566]

Signor Rigamonti, a great cultivator of pinks, asserted that he was able
to distinguish double from s