JOURNAL OF HORTICUIiTUEE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ Janaai7 7, 1875. 



And if the greatest loved their gardens, so down the scale 

 do the tired citizen, the busy cnuntry doctor, the tied-at-home 

 tradesman (yet making home happy with flowers and pets), 

 the mother with her group of little ones around her, and, too, 

 those "unappropriated blessings" single ladies, in former 

 years so jeered at by shallow-brained men, but now highly 

 esteemed by all the good. 



It is pleasant to see, after the long reign of small bedding 

 plants, that a taste for the old border plants has revived — 

 happily before they have all died-out of knowledge ; and such 

 papers as Mr. J. Wright's on Wallflowers and Stocks cannot 

 fail to help on this revival. All knowledge is power, and 

 more, all proper knowledge — i.e., knowledge of good, brings 

 pleasure ; so that the man who first turns our attention to 

 what is beautiful in Nature, or re-directs further attention to 

 some half-forgotten flower, is doing good. 



" Sweet is the lore which Nature brings : 

 Our meddliDg intellect 

 Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things — 

 We murder to dissect. 

 " Enough of science and of art : 

 Close up these barren leaves ; 

 Come forth, and bring with you a. heart 

 That watches and receives." 



I have often thought of the above beautiful lines during the 

 past summer, which, beginning in April, at least to us in the 

 west, was prolonged far, very far, into the autumn, as even 

 late in November I counted above a hundred blooms of the 

 Lamarque Rose on the south front of my house, perfect in 

 form and equally as beautiful in foliage to those which July 

 showed. It has been a rare season, this past one, for enjoying 

 the foliage of trees, from the first green bud to the last golden 

 leaves, as they stood and would stand week after week un- 

 touched by frost. So, too, has the past year, as far as I could 

 judge, been favourable to flowers — a fine out-of-door summer, 

 when week after week I have lived and read and even written 

 out in the open air, listening to the soft summer breeze gently 

 stirring among the leaves of the park trees as they stood knee- 

 deep in the grass, and I felt the power of Tennyson's expres- 

 sion, " There is no joy but calm." Such of the past season. 



And will not the future year be as joy-giving ? I trust so. 

 No doubt the pleasure derived from our gardens will be as 

 ever a perennial one. This is well expressed in a small poem 

 of Goethe's, which, though our little children learn it, has the 

 mark of a great genius — 



" Through the forest idJy, as my steps I bent, 

 "With a free and happy heart, singing as I went ; 

 Cowering in the shade, I a floweret did e.spy, 

 Bright as any star in heaven, sweet as any eye. 

 Down to pluck it stooping, thns to me it said — 

 ' "Wherefore plack me only to wither and to fade ?' 

 Up with its roots I dug it ; I bore it as it grew, 

 And in my garden-plot at home I planted it anew, 

 All in a still and shady place beside my home so dear; 

 And now it thanks me for my pains, and blossoms eveiy year." 



Here in little we have the gain of a garden — the wild flower 

 placed there, and always to be seen, and in its season to meet 

 us with its bright flowers. There is cheerfulness in a garden. 

 How opposite this to the picture drawn by Goldsmith of the 

 deserted garden, the garden gone back to a wilderness — 



" Near yonder copse, where once the garden smiled. 

 And still where many a garden flower gi-owa wild." 



I love to see the wild reclaimed ; but the once-civilised, as here 

 described, to become again wild is sad indeed. 



In that department of " our Journal " in which I personally 

 take a small share with my pen, I may congratulate all exhi- 

 bitors of poultry and Pigeons in the advance made by their 

 fancy, evidenced by shows so attracting public attention that 

 reports appear in the daily London papers of many shows, and 

 which reports show some slight knowledge of the subject ; 

 which was not the case formerly, for no notice was taken of 

 shows save in comic journals by way of ridicule, and the 

 general writer knew not the difference of one variety from 

 another. It is so no longer. These fancies have become gene- 

 ral, and knowledge of them has become general too. 



Novelists reflect very accurately the feelings and tastes of 

 the generation in which they live. Fielding, by far the greatest 

 writer of fiction in the last century (would that he had been a 

 pure as well as a great writer), describes in one of the opening 

 chapters of " Tom Jones," Prior Park House near Bath, the 

 residence of Ralph Allen, who, under the nom de plunic of 

 Squire Allworthy, figures as an almost perfect English gentle- 

 man in its pages, yet mentions nothing about Allen's feathered 

 pets; but we learn from Wood, the architect of Prior Park, 

 that AUen instructed him to provide good accommodation for 



all his live stock, from his horses down, or rather up, to his 

 Pigeons. " Within this superstructure," says Wood, after 

 describing its architectural details, " the Pigeons are magni- 

 ficently housed , and their particular cells are made with wrought 

 freestone ; so that if a beautiful habitation is really an allure- 

 ment to this species of birds as some pretend, Mr. Allen's 

 Pigeons will in all probability never desert their present place 

 of abode. The tamer poultry," it is added, " are not less 

 beautifully housed than the Pigeons." Of all this the novelist 

 takes no notice whatever, although he accurately describes the 

 house and park. Allen's Pigeons were also, evidently, only 

 common birds kept for pies, not fancy Pigeons. 



Now to show how the fancy has increased, we notice in 

 modern days the lady who writes under the name of George 

 Elliot, and is the greatest novelist living, makes a lady of rank 

 say in " Middlemarch," one of her most recent works, " Take 

 a pair of Tumblers for them. Little beauties ! You must come 

 and see them. Yon have no Tumblers among your Pigeons." 

 And the good dame, a humble person, makes answer, " Well, 

 madam, Fitchett shall go and see them after work. He's very 

 hot on new sorts." The Pigeons meant were no doubt high- 

 class Tumblers. Here the novelist exactly reflects the age, 

 for turn to the catalogue of our Crystal Palace Show, yon will 

 find exhibitors of every rank from dukes and lords and ladies 

 downwards. 



I would wish in regard to poultry that utility should be more 

 kept in view and more honoured in our schedules. Fancy is 

 ruining some breeds of dogs ; for instance, the fox terrier, who 

 is actually not unfrequentlyno terrier at all, but a bastard-bred 

 beagle. The judges demanding length of nose, and they have 

 got it, but the earth-going terrier is gone, being no more a 

 terrier than our show Dragoon is a Dragoon. The latter 

 matters less, because a fancy Pigeon is not a bird of utihty, 

 though Pigeons should always be shown under their correct 

 names, and a Horseman be called a Horseman. I hope, too, 

 we shall not americanise our Game fowls by calling them 

 " Games." Let our cousins do as they will across the water, 

 let us keep to English names. 



Lastly, I say, and say fully assured of its truth, that not 

 only the subjects of our pages will give their admirers as much 

 pleasure in the future year as the past, but this Journal will 

 be in the future year, as in each past year, advancing in 

 interest, position, and influence. It wiU go on as always 

 calmly, steadily, and successfully, having 



" No fears to beat away, no strife to heal ; 

 The past tmsighed for, and the future sure." 



— Wiltshire Rector. 



A NEW TYPE OF PELARGONIUM. 



All horticulturists engaged with the cultivation of Pelar- 

 goniums, all amateurs of this beautiful genus, and especially 

 those who are occupied in hybridising, know the hybrids of 

 P. hederaafolium and zonale obtained in England by Wills and 

 Peter Grieve by artificial fecundation. They know also that 

 these hybrids seem to corroborate the theory of certain botan- 

 ists, seeing that those that we know, and particularly WUIsii, 

 Willsu rosea, Emperor, and Dolly Varden are sterile ; and that 

 which is much more to be regretted is that they are superior 

 to P. peltatum and lateripes by their great vigour and abun- 

 dant blooming. 



The horticultural world will therefore learn with pleasure 

 that a plant of this strain, which produces an abundance of 

 seed, has been found in the environs of Nice. According to 

 a communication I have received it has been found in a bed 

 planted with Pelargonium hederajfolium, having lilac white 

 flowers, and P. zonale with red, white, rose, and buff. So far 

 as I can judge by the branches and flowers which I have re- 

 ceived it is a good hybrid between the two species, but tending 

 by its habit more to hederfefolinm than zonale, as it is decum- 

 bent. Nevertheless, the foliage is more in the way of zonale 

 than that of the hybrids obtained in England : the flowers are 

 red brilliant, and fifteen to twenty in a truss. The zonale has 

 therefore exercised great influence in the fecundation. 



Which is the plant which has produced the seed whence 

 this remarkable and curious plant has come? We do not 

 know, and perhaps never shall know. 



This interesting plant is in the hands of M. Ch. Huber, 

 florist, of Nice, who has propagated and will send it out next 

 March under the name (an erroneous one I think) of Geranium 

 pseudo-zonale ; but the name matters little. 



This is a plant that ought to attract the attention of all 



