160 



THE GARDENERS MONTHLY 



[Mat, 



houses, horse-cars, and so forth, and which they 

 mail to any one for 20 cents. 



International Exhibition. — 



BrREAU OF Agriculture, \ 

 Philadelphia, March 28th, 1876. j 



Sir: — The Centennial Commission are erecting 

 a special annex for the exhibition of fruits ; the 

 dimensions of the structure, situated on the east 

 of the Agricultural building, and connected with 

 it by a covered way, are one hundred and eighty 

 by two hundred feet, affording room for the dis- 

 play of eiglit thousand dishes of fruit at periods 

 of special displays. Although the exhibition of 

 pomological products will extend over the en- 

 tire term of the exhibition, affording most 

 marked manifestation of the wide range of our 

 soils and climates, still there will be certain pe- 

 riods especially designated for the display of par- 

 ticular fruits, which have special seasons, under 

 the influences that more immediately pertain to 

 the States near to Pennsylvania, and which from 

 their proximity to the point of display, will afford 

 the material for large and expressive exhibits. 



The periods decided upon for these special 

 displays are as follows, though any of the fruits 

 enumerated will be received for exhibition either 

 preceding or subsequent to these dates : 



Pomological Products, May 16th to 24th. Straw- 

 ben ies, June 7th to 15th. Raspberries and 

 Blackberries, July 3d to 8th. Southern Pom- 

 ological Products, 18th to 22d. Melons, August 

 22d to 26th. Peaches, September 4th to 9th. 

 Northern Pomological Products, 11th to 16th. 

 Nuts, October 23d to November 1st. 



The Pomological annex will also be used for 

 the exhibition of vegetables continuously, and at 

 the stated dates of June 20th to 24th for early 

 summer vegetables; September 19th to 23d fcrr 

 autumn vegetables ; and October 2d to 7th for 

 potatoes and feeding roots. 



Tables and dishes for both fruits and vegeta- 

 bles will be furnished by the Commission free of 

 charge, producers being simply requested to pay 

 the charges for transportation. 



You are respectfully requested to advance the 

 display of fruits and vegetables as much as pos- 

 sible both at terms of stated displays and at all 

 intermediate dates. 



Yours respectfully, 

 Burnet Landreth, 

 •Chief of Bureau of Agriculture, 

 per C. Henry Roney. 

 Strawberries at the Centennial. — Arrange 

 menta are made to have fruits on exhibition at 



all times, whenever people send them, but spe- 

 cial exhibitions will be held at various times. 

 The great Strawberry show will commence on 

 the 7th of June. 



Maryland Horticultural Soctety. — Orchids. 

 — At the March monthly meeting, Captain Snow 

 exhibited twenty species of orchids in flower. 



Attractions at Horticultural Societies. — 

 We are apt to complain that so many of our 

 horticultural societies have to introduce music 

 and various other outside attractions in order to 

 make horticultural exhibitions popular enough 

 to pay expenses, — and we are often told they do 

 things differently in England. But the Garden- 

 er's Chronicle tells us it is the same there as here. 

 The real floral exhibition, it says, is thrust into 

 the background, — expensive bands are engaged, 

 athletic sports, sensational performances, pyro- 

 technic displays, and so forth. The general pub- 

 lic, it thinks, are not attracted by the mere love 

 of floral cultivation. The time was when the re- 

 markable heaths. Pelargoniums, and other things 

 like this really attracted thousand.'^, but it seems 

 there, as well as here, there has been too much 

 sameness, and people have tired. 



Royal Horticultural Society of London. — 

 Mr. Thos. Andrew Knight suggested it. It was 

 founded — its flrst meeting — March 7th, 1804. 

 April 2, 1805, Mr. Knight read the firat paper, 

 followed by one May 7th, by Sir Joseph Banks, 

 on the introduction of the potato. It was char- 

 tered April 7th, 1809, with Earl of Dartmouth, 

 President. In 1811 Mr. Knight became Presi- 

 dent, which he held till his death, in 1838. The 

 published transactions commenced in 1812. In 

 1815 it commenced the practice of sending plant 

 collectors abroad by sending Reeves to China. 

 He sent the first Wistaria Chinensis, Spiraea 

 Reevesia, and other things. Mr. Geo. Don was 

 sent to the west coast of Africa;" David Douglas 

 to North America, and McRae to the Sandwich 

 Islands. In 1840 Hartweg was sent to Gautemela, 

 and, 1842, Fortune to China. After Mr. Knight's 

 death, the Duke of Devonshire became President 

 in 1838, dying in 1858, and succeeded by Prince 

 Albert, since whose death the Society has de- 

 clined, till now it is becoming a question whether 

 it has not fulfilled its mission. It has done an 

 immense work in making horticulture what it is 

 in England. It made the splendid horticultural 

 press of that country a necessity, and now the 

 very existence of that press enables the horticul- 

 turist to do without the society. 



