258 TUE FLORIST. 



HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 

 I AM given to understand that several meetings have been lately held 

 by the Council of this body, for the purpose, I believe, of coming to 

 some decision as to the future plans on which the garden establishment 

 shall hereafter be conducted. My own opinion on this subject has been 

 expressed on previous occasions : it is, that a radical change is necessary 

 in the management. I presume, of course, that nothing will be done until 

 the result of the sale of the house in Regent-street informs the Council 

 what sum that will place in their hands, and further, until they have 

 ascertained what amount of the subscription to the garden fund the donors 

 will allow to remain. Provided the house sells well, and that some 

 considerable portion of the garden fund will be permitted to remain 

 at the disposal of the Council, the fixed debt may at once be cleared 

 off, when the Council, unshackled from this dead weight, will have a 

 clear field before them — not an easy one. 



The Society must be re-organised, and made more in unison with 

 the progress of the times, before any great success can be achieved. 

 This will be no light task, I imagine, from the fact that for several 

 years past the Society has declined in public favour; and that it takes 

 some time to recover a lost prestige, every one conversant with the 

 management of public bodies will allow. I have hopes the Council 

 will succeed in placing the gardens under as good management as they 

 can procure, and that they will not act the part of many similar 

 governing bodies — meet to talk the news of the day, and leave their 

 immediate business in the hands of the secretary, but that they will 

 themselves see that their plans are faithfully carried out. They are 

 responsible to the Fellows at large, who look to them to take care that 

 all is done which can be to maintain in an efficient state so useful and 

 important an institution, and likewise that the money of the Fellows, 

 subscribed for the advancement of horticulture, is not dribbled away 

 in unmeaning experiments, or to gratify peculiar whims. The praise- 

 worthy way in which your periodical brought the affairs of the Society 

 before the public a few months ago, induces me to trouble you to insert 

 this, which not only expresses my own opinion, but, I know, that of 

 many other P.H.S.'s as well. 



F. H. S. 



[We readily give insertion to the foregoing very sensible letter, 

 and think we may assure the writer that at the present time the 

 Council are engaged on the very plans our correspondent points out. 

 How far they will succeed must depend on the co-operation of the hor- 

 ticultural world, who, we hope, will join in helping the Council to carry 

 out those practical measures for remodelling the Society which we 

 believe they have in hand. This can only be done by becoming sub- 

 scribers themselves, and inducing their friends to do so also. Two guineas 

 a year is the new scale of subscription ; no great sum, certainly, but one 

 which, if responded to by lovers of gardening, in the way we hope it 

 will, will enable the Council to place the Society on a firm footing of 

 usefulness, and again render it one of the most really important public 

 bodies in the kingdom. — Ed. Flokist.] 



