THE FLORAL WORLD 



AND 



GARDEN GUIDE 



DECEMBER, 186 



THE CHEYSAIN^THEMUM IN 18G7. 



'HE Exhibitions of tlie past month have been fully as 

 attractive as in any former season within our experience, 

 though the year 1867 must be considered one of the 

 most unfavourable for the Chrysanthemum. On the. 

 23rd of November, when we hastily pen this article that 

 our readers may have what we hope may prove useful information, 

 several of the most noted collections of these flowers are not yet in 

 full bloom, and some of the best specimen plants in the country 

 will scarcely bloom at all this season. We have twice visited Mr. 

 Salter's exhibition, and have not yet seen the flowers of all the seed- 

 lings he intends to distribute next year. In many cases the buds 

 were still hard, and scarcely coloured. Yet we repeat with pleasure 

 that the exhibitions of the past month have been upon the whole 

 satisfactory. The flower itself is advancing ; there is more skill 

 bestowed upon it ; the exhibitions have everywhere been improved 

 by the association of fruits and fine foliaged plants with the flowers 

 — a feature we are proud to know that our labours have promoted ; 

 and there are more cultivators of the flower than there ever were 

 before ; and so at the exhibitions there have been spirited competi- 

 tions. 



The lateness of the flowers everywhere is no doubt owing to the 

 unfavourable weather which occurred in the latter part of July and 

 throughout the month of August. The damp aud cold, which caused 

 the potato-disease, seriously aflected these plants, which were then 

 forming their embryo flower-buds, and should have been in the 

 fullest vigour. Their proper flowering season was fiir from unfa- 

 vourable, for we have passed through a bright and pleasant autumni 

 Most of our readers will be able to remember that many tiuies we 

 have had sharp frost ere the present period of the year ; but we 

 have had nothing of the sort to check the flowers this season, aud 

 we attribute their backwardness to the check they suflered in the 

 latter part of the summer, when their growth was nearly completed. 

 And if this view of the case is correct, it afi'ords a lesson of prac- 

 tical value. To have these splendid flowers in perfection in No- 



YOL. II. — NO. XII. 23 



