54 THE GARDENER. [Feb. 



would return with the conviction that • Barnes could not show at all.' Such has 

 been the avowal of scores ; but they did not go into the back aheda and Mushroom- 

 houses, neither did they explore the barns nor look under the Cedar trees upon 

 the lawn, where plants of rare excellence would be set out in the full light to 

 colour. These things, unless they were intimate friends, they did not see, and 

 hence concluded that Barnes had nothing to show. On one occasion, and the 

 last time Mr Barues showed a large collection at < hiswick, he had staged a superb 

 group of fifty stove or greenhouse plants in flower, not having a duplicate plant 

 of any kind. The first prize was given to his rival, because she had two plants 

 of this, two of that, and two of the other thing — facts which, with discriminating 

 judges, would have placed the collection incontestably second. Mr Barnes 

 returned home disgusted. On the following morning (Sunday), Mr Norman went 

 to him in the garden, and condoling with him for the wrong to which he had 

 been subjected, gave him, as a solatium, a cheque for £50. We see the tears in 

 our honest friend's eyes as he told us a few days afterwards of this act of consider- 

 ate kindness, and we mention it now, perhaps for the first time, as a public fact. 

 Never afterwards did Mr Barnes show the large collection at Chiswick, remarking 

 to us, ' I can take my own van, and clear £10 and my expenses ; while by showing 

 the large collection, if I gain the first prize, I am frequently a loser by the expenses.' 

 Shortly after this, when the want of the Bromley collections made a sad gap in 

 the shows at Chiswick, it was tauntingly asserted that those only abstained from 

 showing there who were sure of beiug beaten, pronouncing at the same time a grand 

 eulogium upon the Ealing Park plants. On the following Wednesday was the great 

 6how at the Royal Botanic Gardens, and Mr Barnes, to resent the taunt, took up the 

 gems of his collection — and they were gems — and beat the Chiswick prize collec- 

 tion with ease, — caustically retorting upon Dr Lindley, ' they are not good enough 

 for Chiswick, but they are good enough to beat the best you can get there.'" 



As a nurseryman, Mr W. Barnes had proved successful, and his 

 nursery at Camberwell, though somewhat small and unpretending, was 

 well worthy a visit at all seasons of the year. As a judge, both at 

 the metropolitan and some of the leading provincial shows, his services 

 were much in request, and in the ' Journal of Horticulture' of January 

 G, the Rev. Mr Dombrain of Deal bears kindly testimony to his great 

 and special qualifications for his work. In private life he was much 

 respected; he was a good and just man, leading a simple unpretentious 

 life; sorely afflicted at times by a trying bronchial affection, and at 

 length, overcome by it, he was seen softly sinking down towards the 

 death that has removed him from us. " Cradled in its quiet deep," 

 we leave him to that hallowed sleep, holding him to our hearts in 

 pleasant memories not soon to be effaced. He too was a strong link 

 binding our times to those which twenty years ago he made so famous, 

 and his death also weakens the hold of the past upon the active and pro- 

 gressive present. In the removal of a third, Mr John Sladden of Ash, 

 next Sandwich, floriculture loses one of its most devoted sons. He 

 has passed away just as the prime of life glides almost imperceptibly 

 into age. In the strength of his floricultural manhood, he identified 

 himself more closely with the florists of the midland districts rather 



