JULY. 205 



Reach that for February in the present year, and you \y\\\ see well 

 executed and faithful portraits of Fanny Keynes and Rachel Rawlings, 

 two new Dahlias, which no grower who hopes to hold a good position 

 next autumn will be without. Now tell me, is not the former laiye 

 enough for the back row of any stand? Well, that flower is 

 exactly four inches and three quarters in diameter. With regard to 

 the latter, neither you nor I need be ashamed of a middle row of such 

 blooms, even though the measurement be something less than four 

 inches and a quarter across. I must trouble you with one more re- 

 ference to the illustrations of the Florist. In the number for ]\Iay 

 1853 is a dehneation of Sir John Franklin, a small flower, the 

 diameter of which is a trifle less than four inches, but which, you will 

 agree with me, is a perfect model for the front row. I could adduce 

 many other examples ; but it is needless to overload a good case ■v\4th a 

 multiplicity of witnesses ; and I am quite willing to leave mine to be 

 decided by the evidence already before you. A word in your ear, good 

 sir, before we part. If you can, tastefully and judiciously — due regard 

 being had to the efficient distribution of colours — set up, at Brighton, 

 on the 13th of September next, 24 clean, compact, weU-formed and 

 dissimilar blooms, of the dimensions I have indicated, I will back you, 

 at small odds, to win the Railway Cup, particularly if your competi- 

 tors have any of the six-inch flowers in their collections. Should you 

 successfully adopt this disinterested hint of mine, I shall expect you — 

 out of pure gratitude — to fill the goblet Asdth claret or champagne, and 

 give me the pleasure of drinking to your health in a bumper. On that 

 auspicious occasion, be assured I shall not fail to present my credentials, 

 so soon as I observe that the libation is prepared. I take it for granted 

 the Railway Company will exhibit no less spirit than was e^dnced in 

 September last. 



As the few observations I have yet to make are addressed exclusively 

 to the tyro in DahUa cultivation, I would ad\'ise the more experienced 

 grower, who understands the matter — it may be — far better than I, 

 to spare himself the trouble of perusing the next paragraph. I would 

 not have obtruded these remarks (which many wall regard as mere 

 truisms) did I not know, from experience, that the young florist is 

 often thankful for information on minute points, with which the old 

 hand is so thoroughly conversant, as to suppose they must, of necessity, 

 be well understood by every one. 



In stands of Dahlias, staged for competition, the flowers are arranged 

 in three rows. The blooms in each row, respectively, should be matched 

 as nearly as possible in size ; and although some difference in the 

 dimensions of the blooms in either row (in relation to the other rows) is 

 not only admissible, but even to a certain extent necessary, yet the 

 general appearance of the whole is much more imposing when the dis- 

 proportion of size between the first, second, and third tiers is not too 

 marked; 5, 4 5, and 4 inches would, obviously, be a more pleasing 

 gradation than 6, 5, and 4 ; nay, I am by no means certain that a 

 quarter of an inch taken from the diameter of the back row and added 

 to that of the front, in the former scale, would not present a coup d'cell 

 still more pleasing and effective. Let it be remembered that the size 



