142 THE FLORIST. 



the all-engrossing care. About this I am glad to notice good taste is 

 beginning to sicken with the everlasting repetition of red, yellow, and 

 blue, with which colours almost every garden — from that of the palace 

 down to the humblest manse — has been crammed for the last few 

 years. Not that I object to masses of colour — not I — but 1 like to see 

 the thing properly done. Artistically, if you like that word better ; — 

 and, as we have a whole range of colours, we may as well, make them' 

 enter into combination a little, as dab them about in spots. To do this 

 there are two ways of managing the matter : — one, by keeping one 

 colour to a bed, having the brightest and most distinct in the middle, 

 and shading them down to the margin by varieties of less intense colour 

 — excepting where the mass is a great one, wdien a band or divisional 

 line may be introduced ; — the second is to blend the colours, by planting 

 rows or bands of different colours round a centre. When the plants 

 employed are judiciously selected, according to their habit and colour, 

 most pleasing combinations of colours can be obtained — the same 

 results follow planting in borders in right lines. In this style a great 

 variety of plants can be introduced, and the general effect is pleasing 

 and harmonious. By-the-bye, will nobody have a word to say in 

 favour of some old IHends in the shape of Larkspurs, Campanulas, 

 and other herbaceous plants ? What is really so fine as the now 

 neglected Double Siberian Larkspur, unless we might find it with our 

 old friend at Dropmore, who I like all the better ibr sticking to these 

 old-fashioned things ? 



I had nearly filled my space, Mr. Editor, without saying one word 

 about fruit trees, on which I see there is a vehement discussion in your 

 columns, into which I do not care to enter. For certain, however, 

 Apricots " caught it " last month ; there are, however, enough left for 

 a crop. Peaches appear to be safe, or nearly ; but I am sorry to see, 

 in places, evidences of gum, resulting from the autumn of 1855 not 

 being so favourable for ripening the wood as 1854. Plums and Cherries 

 are now in full bloom, how they will escape the frosts of the last few 

 nights is more than I can say now ; one thing in their favour is that 

 the air is very dry. Early Pears, the same ; some kinds are not out yet 

 — the bloom appears scant. Apples, on the contrary, abundant. 



As a hint worth remembering, I say, for this next month care more 

 about keeping the tops of newly-planted trees, &c., damp, than their roots. 



By way of postscript let me add that the subscription-list for raising 

 the 5000/. required by the Council of the Horticultural Society to enable 

 them to carry on the Garden, fills slowly. Let the nobility of England 

 take for example the nobIe-mm6.<n\ German, H. Behrens, Esq., who so 

 liberally subscribed 100/., and the list would soon be complete. 



NATIONAL FLORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



3Iarch 27. — As the meetings of this Society give greater oppor- 

 tunities than are afforded by any other society for seeing seedling 

 florists' flowers as well as new plantS; it is our intention to report fully 



