4C4 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTUBE AND COTTAGE GABDENEK. 



[ Jane 21, 1877. 



they actually at last would Hot allow Simonite to compete with 

 hia eeedlinge. They were too lazy to try and beat him in that 

 most splendid of all florist races, the race with seedling?, and 

 too mean to let him win what he deserved. I do not know 

 what shows these were, or who the sapient committees ; but I 

 Bhould like to gibbet them here, who dealt so ill with this 

 man and all the best interests of florist flowers. That there 

 were such unprincipled doings is a disgraceful fact, and it is 

 well if the small shows where they could be perpetrated are 

 extinct. 



Latest but not least of the Rough iJank favourites are the 

 Auriculas, which were started with in 1860. These were for 

 long a sorely difficult flower to manage, and indeed will hardly 

 grow there at all in frames. House treatment of them is, how- 



ever, a totally different matter, and in their span-roofed home 

 they really do appear at home and are a grand specimen of 

 culture. In these, as in the Carnations, Picotees, and Tulips, 

 the best are his own seedlings. 



I wish in conclufiou I could describe the growing horrors 

 with which Ben Simonite and his father have had to contend 

 these forty years at Rough Bank. Nothing is safe now except 

 under shelter, and ordinary erections are perfectly futile. A 

 Tulip tent would be swept off the face of the earth in a wind, 

 and frame lights have been carried away like autumn leaves ; 

 bell-glasses must be wired down by their wood plates under a 

 flower as if they were soda water corka. Nothing but iron and 

 glass firmly secured will outlive the tempests that sweep 

 Rough Bank, Tulips are mown off this year, and I have seen 



Fig 65 — "Vlr LENT\-\iiN =fm:)MTi 



Carnation blooms blown literally in drifts into the hedge bot- 

 tom. It is a cruel place ; but now there are houses for the 

 Auriculas and Picotees, though the beds are still under tem- 

 porary shelter, tedious to erect and most curious in their way, 

 Take a stranger to see the bloom here and he would say. 

 " What do you call this? What have you brought mo here 

 for? Do you mean to insult me, sir?" For here is not a 

 flower to be seen, but a crowd of supports and sticks, bearing 

 an incongruous, motley, laughable bloom of old saucepans and 

 pot lids, decrepit earthenware, unsound tumblers, a foundered 

 teapot, castaway boxes that have contained somebody's pre- 

 eminent mustard, soap, or chocolate; a derelict kettle such as 

 would delight the hard souls of Sheffield boys to tie to the 

 tails of Sheffield curs ; all these and other like adaptations of 

 odds and ends make up a very nightmare dream of a breeder. 

 Yet under all these most uncouth and battered shells is some 

 fair gem, some spotless Picotee in inconceivable contrast to its 

 surroundings, and infinitely more to be wondered at as it 

 stands than a pearl in its native oyster. 



All Benjamin Simonite's brother florists and friends, and 

 many stratigers will be glad to see here the image of his patient 



face. He leaves every lover of a flower without excuse for 

 failure. Situation ! Look at his, though 1 cannot half describe 

 it. Time ! Look at his, largely not his own. Weariness ! 

 Look at his, in a hot and heavy trade. Means! Well, look 

 at his. Ho is not ashamed if I say plainly they are small, and 

 I wish they were larger. That is the dark side ; but look how 

 perseverance, patience, and watchful care and love brighten 

 all of it up for him. A brave fellow, with indeed many a floral 

 misfortune, but never a grievance, and always at last success. 

 ^F. D. HoBNEB, Kirkhy Malzeard, Ripon. 



NEW EDITION. 



The Orchid-Growers' 3fanunl. B. S.Williams, Victoria and 

 Paradise Nurseries, Upper HoUoway, London, N. 

 Had not this been a good and an useful volume it would not 

 have reached its fifth edition. It contains descriptions of up- 

 wards of nine hundred species and varieties of Orohidaoeous 

 plants with practical notes on their cultivation. The volume 

 IB not only useful but attractive, for it contains several en- 

 gravings and one of the finest-coloured plates of Oilontoglos- 



