EXtliniTIOX AT CHISWICK. 



person is at liberty to send objects for exhibition, whether a member of the society or not. 

 A printed list of the premiums intended to be given during the year, is issued annually some 

 months before the exhibitions begin; so that all growers may see what they are, and regu- 

 late themselves accordingly. When the time arrives, several large exhibition tents are 

 set up in the gardens, and on the morning of the exhibition, but not before, at a very 

 early hour waggon loads of plants, &c., begin to arrive, accompanied by their owners, 

 " anxious for the fray, and eager for the fight." Proper officers of the society are there 

 to give directions as to the particular tent appropriated to each collection of plants, and 

 a spot is pointed out to each exhibitor, as that in which he is to exhibit, and then the latter 

 and his assistants proceed at once to set up their collections. In this way, between four 

 o'clock in the morning, and 10 o'clock, the whole of the large tents are filled: and the 

 persons appointed to adjudge the premiums, proceed immediately to the discharge of the 

 duty assigned to them. This tliey get through in about three hours, so that b}^ one 

 o'clock, P. M., the liour at which the public are admitted, the whole of the tents are 

 read}'', and no one would suppose from the finished neatness of the place, that for the pre- 

 ceding five or six hours it had been a perfect maze of confusion. 



Now to return to my fair companions, whom I left rather ungallantly, while I have 

 been giving these details of preparation, for me to acconipan}' them to the exhibition. 



Half an hour's drive through the noisy streets of London, put us fairly out upon the 

 road leading to Chisvvick, which is about four miles from Hyde Park. The hour was about 

 two o'clock; and before we arrived within two miles of the gardens, we found we formed 

 one continued line of carriages, which reached the whole of that distance. Of course the 

 other end of this line of vehicles was depositing the occupants at the garden as they arrived 

 there, and consequently our progress onward was anything but that of a railwa}' express 

 train! Onward, however, we went, and at length found ourselves safely deposited at a 

 small mean looking door in a wall, which once passed, opened to our view indeed a con- 

 trast with the outside. A fine large spreading lawn was before us, upon which was dis- 

 tributed at short intervals, specimens of exotic ever-greens, the foli;ige of most of which 

 swept the verdant carpet of velvet herbage beneath; and between these elegant shrubs, 

 were interspersed flower beds of all sizes and shapes, filled with herbaceous plants and 

 new annuals, the bloom of which appeared to rival the rainbow in variety and brilliancy. 

 But lover as I am of flowers, for once ni}' attention, after a hasty glance over them, was 

 involuntarily arrested and completely transfixed by the animated portion of the scene 

 around me. Walking amidst these beauties of the floral world, was such a bevy of the 

 " fair daughters of our mother Eve," as I confess induced me to feel but little regret that 

 I was born in these last days of the world, instead of the early ones, when fair Eve herself, 

 " with sweet attractive grace," adorned the earth with lier presence. 



I noticed in the beginning of my remarks, that the style is for ladies to go in full dress, 

 and here was before me the " elite " of " Albion's fair daughters," radiant in their native 

 beauty, and decked in all the splendor that luxury could suggest, or mone}' purchase. 

 The gardens were filling rapidly; and the tickets taken on that day at the doors, showed 

 that upwards of eleven thousaiul visitors had attended thcexhibition. And as upon these 

 occasions, the softer sex always [iredmninates considerably over our own, some idea may 

 be formed of the effect such an assemblage was calculated to produce. The one thousand and 

 one nights of our Arabian friends, have introduced to the acquaintance of many of us, a 

 sketch of marvels which we have often in boyish mode, longed to see reiilized, but un 

 btedly few if any other seen than a Chiswick exhibition day, can approach so 

 ncy's sketch " of such a realization. 



