52 THE GARDENER. [Feb. 



play — who are honourable, just, and upright. With deep regret be 

 it stated, these fair names can be sullied over with seeming wrong- 

 doing through the action of a Sub-Committee of the officials of the 

 Society, done in their name, and stamped with their approval. From 

 the occurrence which unfortunately casts a passing reflection on them, 

 they will learn something of the existence of an evil which has given 

 much cause for regret to many of the Society's best friends. Once 

 made aware of this by seeing in how unlovely a character it manifests 

 itself through its secret workings, the moment which shall witness its 

 effectual and permanent repression cannot be far distant. 



Lastly, the public instinct will readily seize on the circumstance of 

 the expulsion from the Floral Committee at this particular time of one 

 of the Editors of the ' Gardener' as lending a confirmation to the charge 

 frequently brought against the Council of the Royal Horticultural 

 Society, that it favours certain horticultural journals to the hurt of 

 others. Such a consideration as this should have had due weight with 

 the Sub-Committee, but in their ill-judged haste they seemed to care 

 but little for the reputation of the Council, as they make that body 

 responsible for their act. If they are all we believe them to be, 

 men of honour and integrity, they will not hesitate to demand, at the 

 hands of the Sub-Committee, the nature of the reasons that induced 

 them so to comjjroniise the high character of the Council. 



NOTES OF THE MONTH. 



The New Year has opened strangely, characterised by singular varia- 

 tions of weather — heavy rains, then hard stern frost, immediately 

 succeeded by a close foggy atmosphere and warm dull days; and then 

 violent raging storms of wind and rain, so wild and strong in their 

 terrible rage that destruction of life and property, alike on land and 

 at sea, has followed in their wake : and these, again, alternated by 

 balmy sunny days, as if spring had prematurely awakened to active 

 being ere the soft winds had whispered to her that her appointed 

 time was come. 



With the close of the year two men of some standing among prac- 

 tical horticulturists passed away from our midst. One was Mr William 

 Perry,for many years with Messrs Thomas Rivers & Son at the Sawbridge- 

 worth Nurseries, and who was well known at the exhibitions of the 

 Royal Horticultural and Royal Botanic Societies as an excellent judge 

 of Roses. Painstaking, straightforward, and always kindly and cour- 

 teous in his demeanour, he was much respected in his particular walk 



