1870.] REVIEWS. 567 



sprung up recently, and a few visionary articles have been written, which prove 

 nothing but want of knowledge, aud bad taste on the part of the writers. It 

 is a fact beyond dispute, that horticultural societies throughout the three king- 

 doms have been the means of promoting the science of horticulture, and to 

 their influence, fostering care, and encouragement, is due the introduction of 

 the many plants which now ornament our stoves and greenhouses, as well as 

 the open ah' — both of these yielding fine flowers and ornamental foliage. Such 

 subjects as these, when brought together at an exhibition, and made to form 

 the basis of a gorgeous display, impress the enthusiastic beholders with a love 

 for plants, and many of our leading amateurs have assured us that these floral 

 displays were the means of first instigating them to become horticulturists. 



" Having for many years been a constant visitor at these shows, and taking an 

 active part in these displays both at home and abroad, we have been able to 

 judge practically of the progress these have been the means of producing on plant 

 cultivation, and in the effective grouping of plants ; also in regard to the great 

 variety of objects brought for public competition. Being fully alive to all this, it 

 has necessarily caused us extreme regret to see the backward tendency displayed 

 by our Metropolitan Horticultural Societies during the present season ; for just 

 at the time when we have become fully aware of our error in devoting our whole 

 energies to produce flowers only, to the utter neglect of plants of elegant forms 

 and beautiful leaves, and are earnestly endeavouring to retrieve this error, and 

 when, too, we are introducing these plants largely for the decoration of our gardens 

 in the open air, the societies have totally withdrawn their encouragement for the 

 production of them ; and by their silence respecting them — by their not asking 

 for plants remarkable for the beauty of their foliage to grace their exhibitions — 

 they seem to ignore the existence of grand specimen plants, whether ornamental 

 in foliage or flowers. How such a state of things has originated it is difficult to 

 say, but of this we are fully assured, that the exhibitions without these fine 

 ornamental-leaved plants will be miserable in the extreme. What lent the great 

 charm to the London and Paris Great International Flower -Shows, but the 

 elegant Tree Ferns, and those of humbler growth, the noble Palms and Musas, 

 besides the vast quantities of other ornamental - leaved plants there brought 

 together ? The various shades of green and variegated leaves formed an agreeable 

 contrast with, and served to enhance the beauty of, the masses of bloom staged 

 with and around them; and what would these exhibitions have been without such 

 plants 1 Again, what is it that causes all visitors to plant-exhibitions upon the 

 Continent to pronounce them finer than our own? It certainly is not their grand 

 Heaths or New Holland Plants, for such things are not well grown by Continental 

 cultivators ; neither is it their magnificent stove-flowering plants and Azaleas, 

 for with these we are infinitely their superiors ; but it is through the quantity of 

 Ferns, Palms, and ornamental leafage generally introduced, and which is judici- 

 ously arranged with their somewhat inferior flowering subjects. These materials 

 being grouped for effect, the appearance produced is most enchanting, such as we 

 have never yet equalled. This is the only reason why all reporters receive a more 

 favourable impression abroad than at home. Yet such as these are the very 

 plants that are to be banished, as specimens, from our flower -shows in the 

 metropolis ! Let us fain hope that those who perpetrate such barbarisms — 

 who thus try, as it were, to hurl horticulture back into its dark ages — may 

 speedily see the error of their ways. They manage these things far better in the 

 provinces ; and the authorities of such centres of horticulture as Manchester, 

 Leeds, and York, are too well aware of, and appreciate too well, the effect large 

 ornamental - leaved plants produce, ever to think of discarding them from 



