January 11, 1877. ) 



jaua>(\L OP uosriGULCURS and cottage gardenss. 



HORTICULTUr.E IN 1876— A EETROSPECT. 



ORTICDLTORB liii which term I would 

 compivlitud all the various dcpartmeuts of 

 ^iirdcciu^'l has, like everything here, its 

 varied scenes of prosperity and adversity, 

 and on looking back over another year we 

 have to chronicle gains and losses. In 

 givin?, then, my view of matters connected 

 with it during 1876 I do to only from my 

 own ttandpoiut; by no means claiming for 

 myself any right to do so, but at the same 

 time believing that I have had some facilities for forming 

 an opinion. It is kiiovva to the readers of '"our Jourual" 

 that I have every year opportunities not only of 6«c-iug 

 what is doing iu tho metropolis, but also in various parts 

 of the country, and during that now closing have visited 

 the west and Lortli of England, and crossed the border 

 into Scotland ; and as I have recoi'ded the results of these 

 visits from time to time, I have no intention of doing 

 more now than making a few general observations con- 

 nected with them. 



I think it is very clear that if amongst the arts of peace 

 thei-e is one at any rate that increasingly finds favour 

 with all classes iu our favoured laud more than another 

 it is gardening ; and that if our neighbours on the Conti- 

 nent twit us with the low character of our schools of 

 painting and sculpture, with our poverty iu music and 

 want of taste in architecture, we may fairly take our 

 stand on our gardening powers and defy the world. And 

 this love for our gardens has suffered no diminution in 

 the past year. Whether one visits the stately grandeur 

 of Chatsworth, I)rumlauri.g, or Trenthanj, the wind-swept 

 garden of my friend Mr. Mackenzie at Newton Stewart, or 

 the densely smoke-pestered garden of good Ben Simonite 

 at Sheffield, it is over the same. Where princely fortunes 

 and grand facilities combine there is such a completeness 

 that one wonders what can be tho meaning of -^ Iterations 

 and additions, or what there is to alter or add to; while 

 to surmount obstacles and overcome difficulties is the 

 task that loving hearts and hands desire to aocomplieh 

 and bend their energies to effect, and I know not if real 

 gardening power is not displayed in the latter rather than 

 in the former case. Through all classes and iu all ways 

 this love holds good. Enterprising purveyors for novel- 

 ties send their collectors all over the world to rifle nature 

 of its treasures, and give them to us for our gardens ; 

 while hard-working men at home strive to increase our 

 pleasures by producing new varieties of flowers, frnite, 

 and vegetables; and if at time? they give us novelties 

 which are only so in name, aud improvements which are 

 improvements at tho wrong end — -why, wo must not set 

 them down as dislionest; they have looked at these 

 things with a parent's fondness, and have been unable to 

 see the defects which strangers do, and we must pardon 

 what we suffer in such cases for the good thoy have done 

 us in others. 



In looking back on the past year I do not call to mind 

 at present anything very remarkable that will make this 



No. 824.- Vol. Xxxn., New Series. 



year notable in novelties ;. while of such aa have come 

 imder my own special obsarvation I shall hope to say 

 something when 1 send forward my annual '' notes from 

 my garden," While, however, admitting all this, I think 

 it becomes a question whether flower shows are increasing 

 in favour, 'ihe past year has been such a one with 

 regard to meiropolitau exhibitions as will probably never 

 be seen again ; they came so rapidly one after the other 

 that exhibitors must have been at their wit's end. Tha 

 Royal Botanic Society wiJl no doubt hold its usual exhi- 

 bitions ; and as to the Boyal Horticultural Society, I think 

 we may conclude that its days of grand flower shows will 

 be fewer, even should Mr. Wilson's plan for its resuscitatioa 

 be successful. The opening of the Aquarium at West- 

 minster, and the placing of the floral department under 

 tho care of Mr. J. Wills, gave an opportunity for tire in- 

 auguration of a series of shows which for muuiiicenoe Iq 

 the amount of prizes we can never expect to seo equalled. 

 Tho attempt to break through the ordinary arrangement 

 of flower shows was not very suocesslul, but better or 

 more extensive collections of plants and flowers have 

 hardly been brought together before. But this is all a 

 thing of the past. Ihe Alexandra Falaee, which has vied 

 with its sister at Sydenham in the matter of flower shows, 

 is shut up, after the testimony of all concerned that they 

 did not pay. Ihe Crystal Palaco authorities say the 

 same, and have in consequence out-down their sehedules 

 of prizes. While in the provinces there seems to bo 

 an increasing tendency to try and attract people by 

 other things ; and horae shows, dog, cat, aud poultry 

 shows, iireworks, and amusements of various kinds have 

 been added to tho more legitimate charms of music. 

 This is not a healthy sigo, and either indicates want of 

 taste or that there is so much sameness year after year 

 that people tire of shows. There are, it is true, some no- 

 table examples t j the contrary, but that this is the general 

 stale of things is, I fear, too true. There also seems to 

 be an increasing unwillingness on the part of owners of 

 large gardens to go in for exhibiting, and were it not 

 for the eserlious of professional horticulturists oven our 

 metropolitan shows would be meagre indeed. 



I have been twitted for saying that I believe florists' 

 flowers are at a discount iu the south, and wliile I cheer- 

 fully acknowledge the attempts that are being made to 

 revive an interest in them, 1 am compelled to abide by 

 my view. I have been accused of disloyalty to the causa 

 for having said so. To all who know the deep and hearty 

 interest I have taken in florists' flowers all my life this 

 will seem simply an absurdity. No ! I am no more dis- 

 loyal to them than the ''Iron Duke " was disloyal to his 

 country when he stated, soma years before the Crimean 

 war, that our field artillery was the worst in Europe ; for 

 it led to that thorough reorganisation of that important 

 branch of our service which has made it what it is, and no 

 cause is served by being blind to its defects. There is one 

 flower tho votaries of which seem every year to increase, 

 and it is moro especially a southern flower, and that is 

 the queen of them all — " the Rose." Not an exhibition 

 of it is held but numbers of amateurs crowd forward to 



No. 1170.— Vol. LVII., Old Sebies. 



