FEBRUARY. 33 



NATIONAL FLORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



The two very powerful and well-read champions (see last Number) 

 for the advancement of floriculture have placed, by their united criti- 

 cisms, so prominently before the floral public much that I had long 

 cherished, that, with your permission, I seize the earliest opportunity 

 of registering my fullest concurrence in their views. Owing to my 

 connexion with the National Floricultural Society, I shall confine to 

 practical heads much that I may here briefly advance, leaving to 

 other and more able hands a continuation (1 hope) of those sugges- 

 tions termed speculative, but from which all improvement must flow; 

 for to stem the current of men's thoughts and expressions is to close 

 the door against all progression. I take it to be the true province 

 of the heads of departments, whether literary or otherwise, to seek 

 for and engender " science with practice ;" and if such be tenable, 

 then must such authors as Mr. W. Paul and " Observer" be strictly 

 fulfilling that injunction ; for in Mr. Paul we have a known practical 

 of the highest order, and I should trust that " Observer," whom I 

 will for conciseness call Mr. D., will in no way consider himself 

 lowered by my attributing to him the characteristic of " scientific." 



That the idea of Florists seeking to establish a garden of their 

 own is to me no novelty, can be testified by my friends Mr. Andrew 

 Henderson, Mr. R. Stains, Mr. E. Beck, Mr. C. Turner, and many 

 others whose conversation I have happily long enjoyed ; and on all 

 hands was the theme warmly taken up, the discussion generally 

 concluding with the expression, that " the time for such a step had 

 scarcely arrived." Objectors there w r ere none; few will hail the 

 advent of that " good time" more fervently than myself, a sentiment 

 which I have more freely given vent to in the pages of my Almanack, 

 and which was penned ere the present argument assumed its mighty 

 weight and strength. As to the matter of instituting a series of 

 prizes for subjects generally in cultivation, and which would serve 

 to make " assurance doubly sure," in relation to the test by which 

 the decision of censors might in some measure be regulated, I can 

 only add, that such would be a step in the right direction ; and 

 moreover, I may perhaps be permitted to " tell a tale out of school," 

 which, being simple truth, gives additional weight to the sugges- 

 tion. At the September meeting, so anxious were some of the 

 Dahlia members, that I was enjoined to hold certain amounts of cash 

 from several growers who had entered into a sweepstakes ; and the 

 question being put to a visitor just arrived from Norwich with a box 

 of blooms as to his willingness to join, a most ready response was 

 made, and what was more, the country collection obtained second 

 honours, although staged against others of the London district. I 

 merely relate this to prove that " the spirit" is but slumbering. 



Then, again, as to paid censors (although not strictly to be called 

 paid, when such men as my late lamented friend Mr. Woodhouse 

 journeyed from Whitby, in Yorkshire) ; is it to be presumed that 

 the Society allowed so much enthusiasm as Mr. W.'s to be other 

 than repaid, at least travelling expenses ? So with Mr. Wood from 



