DECEMBER. 365 



opportunity, by the council soliciting designs for laying-out the gardens 

 from all who might have been disposed to have contributed plans for 

 that object. 



We are further informed that the " re-organization of the society 

 upon a scale commensurate with the importance of the position it is 

 now about to assume," is occupying the consideration of the council. 

 We shall look forward with some anxiety to see what their plans to 

 effect this are to be. That there is much more to be done than the 

 forming a grand town garden at Kensington Gore, if horticulture is to 

 be efficiently promoted, is a fact at once obvious to every practical mind ; 

 and believing, as we do, that the council are most anxious to give every 

 support and encouragement to the important objects entrusted to 

 their care, we can only hope that their deliberations may result 

 in some liberal and comprehensive scheme, which shall unite the 

 various sections of Pomology, Floriculture, and practical Horticulture 

 into one vigorous body, with the power and means to develope and 

 carry out each department of horticultural science and practice, in a 

 manner worthy of the age and the high position already occupied by 

 British gardening. 



HOMES OF THE FLORIST.— No. II. 



BROOKE. 



I CHANCED the other day, while waiting in the drawing-room of a 

 friend, to take up a book entitled, I think, " The Floral Museum," 

 published in the year 1837, and professing to give accurate figures of 

 some of the best and newest florists' flowers of that day, and I think few 

 things have impressed me more as to the rapid strides that in the last 

 twenty years nearly every flower has made, than a comparison of those 

 plates with the figures of the same classes of flowers in the last volume of 

 the Florist. You take leave of the companion of your boyish days ; he 

 is a long and gawky youth, full of angles, and evidently blessed with 

 appendages, in the shape of arms and legs, which are sadly in his way, 

 a miserable downy appearance disfigures his upper lip, making him 

 look rather like the callous brood of some unhappy bird — you pronounce 

 him decidedly queer looking. He comes back after ten years' absence. 

 How altered ! — strong in limb, brawny with muscle, and "bearded like 

 the pard." Can it possibly be the same ? Yea ! no mistake ; but time 

 and exercise and good feeding have made all the difference ; no greater, 

 however, than that between the florists' flowers of those days — " the 

 days when I was young" — and the present. There were Dahlias, 

 starry, reflexed, and formless ; Pansies without a bit of eye, but just 

 two or three eyelashes ; Pinks jagged in the edge, irregular in form, and 

 faint in colour ; and, as I pondered on the matter, the first thing that I 

 uttered, in a whisper, was — " Well, George Glenny was a courageous 

 and clever fellow ; when things were in this state he told us what they 

 ought to be, gave diagrams, and defined properties, which were sneered 



