April IG, 1874. 1 



JOURNAL OF HOaTICULTUKE AND COTTAGE GAEDENEB, 



311 



of March in the Bow and Bromley Institute. This year, owing 

 io circumstances over which the Committee had no control, it 

 was not held until the 7th of April, and it continued for the 

 following three days. 



It would occupy too much space to give a detailed account of 

 the Exhibition, but all honour was due to Mr. Parker for three 

 splendid masses of Solomon's Seal (ConvaUaria Polygonatum) 

 in pots ; they were superbly flowered. Twelve pots of Tulips 

 and twelve pots of Polyanthus Narcissus, from the same exhi- 

 bitor, were all that could be desired. Mr. Wordley, jun., was 

 greatest amongst Hyacinths, and though it was so very late for 

 them, his twelve spikes were large and in beautiful condition ; 

 but as it is not possible to mention all, it is almost iuridious to 

 particularise, as good plants were the rule and bad ones the 

 exception. In miscellaneous collections of plants, Azaleas, 

 Palms, Cinerarias, and Spiraea japonica figured. Mr. Hill, a 

 professional grower, exhibited some very good collections ; also 

 an excellent new Hyacinth, Victor Emmanuel, with large rose- 

 coloured bells and a good spike. The prize for the best Hyacinth 

 in the room was awarded to King of the Blues. 



At such exhibitions much valuable information is elicited as 

 to the best flowers for growing in towns. Fuchsias succeed re- 

 markably well, but Pelargoniums and Verbenas are not satis- 

 dactory. 



At the dinner which was given to the Judges in the afternoon, 

 some of the exhibitors testified to the good which both them- 

 selves and families had derived from their love of flowers ; and 

 one gentleman stated that at a critical turn in his business 

 affairs, when day after day he was distracted with cares and 

 difficulties, he would spend an hour at night amongst bis flowers, 

 and for the time quite forget the cares of the day. Better this 

 ihan drowning care in the public house, is it not '? Such socie- 

 ties as this foster a true love for flowers. But to me there was 

 one source of regret in the fact that the old florists' flowers are 

 not more cultivated by such growers. There must be greater 

 pleasure in tending an Auricula plant, for instance, year after 

 year than there can be in growing a Hyacinth or Tulip when 

 you have to purchase a fresh supply of bulbs each recurring 

 season. May this Society long prosper, and may others similar 

 to it be soon formed in other populous districts of this great 

 city. — J. Douglas. 



GARDENING IN TOWNS. 



[Fbom the October of ISiS in which we first ventured to ask 

 for public encouragement until our last published number we 

 have laboured to encourage gardening among all classes and 

 ■under all difficulties. That we have prevailed in many in- 

 stances we know. Even in the dome of St. Paul's and on the 

 roof of a barge's cabin on the Thames we have seen potted 

 and boxed flowers cultivated, and in both instances our un- 

 known cultivators replied to our query about their knowledge 

 of culture, " I read "The Cottage Gaedenee at our club-room." 

 "We are well pleased to see that our daUy contemporaries are 

 advocating town gardening, and we extract the following from 

 the Daily Ni'ws.] 



" That taste for gardening which, according to the author 

 of ' The Parisians,' becomes the refuge and consolation of men 

 of the world in middle life, is, in truth, one of the most spon- 

 taneous and instinctive propensities of young and old, of rich 

 and poor. We are not all botanists or horticulturists, but we 

 are all by nature lovers of flowers ; and if we cannot all have 

 a bit of ground to grow them in, we can make a garden of a 

 window-sill, and, with a little cai'e and tendance, in the smallest 

 balcony we can follow the round of the seasons, from the 

 Snowdrop and the Violet to the Crocus, the Primrose, and the 

 Hyacinth, and from the Hyacinth to the Rose, from the Eose 

 to the Chrysanthemum, and from the Chrysanthemum to the 

 Snowdrop again, renewing in some sort the freshness of lost 

 illusions, cheating the autumn of our own lives of its sadness, 

 and dissembling under perennial garlands our own ' muddy 

 vesture of decay.' We can plant-out the cheerless wintry pro- 

 spect by a little "nest of evergreens without euvjing the pos- 

 sessors of conservatories, which have always something thea- 

 trical, something hard and metallic, like the colours of certain 

 fashionable painters, in their brilliance. Our British soil is 

 not so kindly as thai of France and Italy for the choicer sorts 

 of flowers ; on the other hand, it is one of the Idndliest in the 

 world for shrubs and trees ; and the moisture of our climate 

 is twice blessed to the dutiful cultivator, for whom Nature has 

 the tenderness of a nurse rather than the asperity of a step- 

 mother. The plant Man, said Alfieri, flourishes well in English 

 earth ; and so do all robust and hardy, all simple and homely, 

 natural products. We flatter ourselves that no vegetables 

 and no fruits taste better than those which are reared under 

 English skies ; and somewhere or other between Penzance and 



Aberdeen the daintiest and most delicious are always in season, 

 so that one need not be the proverbial millionaire who began 

 with eighteenpence to indulge the silly vanity of hking only 

 what is out of season. North Britain is not so famous for the 

 geniality and mildness of its temperature as for the pictnresque- 

 ness of its hills and streams ; but North British gardeners, 

 like North British farmers, are renowned throughout the civi- 

 lised world, and an English garden and shrubbery were long 

 ago the favourite luxury of French clidtcaux, as a rehef to the 

 trim formality of the terraces and parterres. 



" The author of ' Lothair ' did good service to public taste 

 and feeling in these matters when he lamented the disappear- 

 ance of so many of our old-fashioned English flowers from the 

 gardens of the rich. Perhaps the terrible Latin names in- 

 vented by the botanists have seared them away. But we hope 

 and believe they are coming back again, if they cannot bring 

 with them the unsophisticated manners of the earlier genera- 

 rations that gave them their names. They have never left the 

 country. Around old manor houses and homesteads, and in 

 villages not a hundred miles out of London, they still sweeten 

 and brighten the daily life and lot of hundreds of honest folk 

 who would be puzzled by the curious patterns of some of the 

 artificial creations of the Horticultural Society — patterns which 

 seem to belong to the milliner's rather than to the gardener's 

 art. Not that we would for a moment appear to sUght the 

 admirable skill which the horticultural societies encourage and 

 exhibit, and which has raised the grand old industry of our 

 first parents to the dignity of a science ; but that we are more 

 concerned at present to dwell upon the opportunities which 

 even the humblest householder — nay, even the humblest lodger 

 — in a populous and densely crowded city possesses of satisfy- 

 ing, in some appreciable degree, that love of flowers which we 

 believe to be indigenous to the EngUshman's heart, and to be 

 part and parcel of his love for his country. If there seems a 

 little affectation in the elaborate floral bowers with which the 

 stucco palaces of Belgravia and Westbournia are disguised by 

 their owners, who desert their country houses from May ta 

 August, we recognise an unconsciously pathetic yearning for o 

 purer and wholesomer existence in the little window gardens 

 of St. Giles's and Bethnal Green, in the old Enghsh flowers 

 so affectionately cherished, like pining and languishing patients, 

 by the hands of poverty, and touching sordid habitations with 

 some faint far-off imaginings of pleasantness and peace. 



" It was a happy perception of these mute relations of men 

 and things that insphed a few of the London clergy with the 

 idea of their window-garden shows and prizes. Few who have 

 not themselves tiled the experiment have any idea of the 

 capabilities of even the smallest strip of the most ungrateful 

 soil in the heart of this vast weary wilderness of bricks for the 

 culture of a few of those simple flowers which are a feast to 

 tired eyes, and sometimes, it may be, a balm to bruised and 

 despondent souls. Let it always be remembered that even in 

 the cruel London clay, which is but a burial ground to almost 

 every class of flower, Pioses will grow — if at least the smoke 

 will spare them. Every lodger who can call an attic-window 

 his own as long as he pays his rent for it, can make it bloom 

 with colour, and recaU perhaps in meditative moments or in 

 sickness the perfume of his native air." 



THE ELECTION OP ROSES. 



In Parliament the members sometimes rise to explain — I 

 ask the same pri\i!ege. I knew so few of the Roses of the 

 years proposed, and was so ignorant of their dates, that I was 

 obliged to ask Mr. Hintou, to whom thanks for his zeal and 

 ability, to excuse me. I am shy of buying new Roses on weak 

 stocks, and still more shy of recommending any that I have not 

 amply tried and found to be " good growers." My gardens are 

 famous sites for windmills ; it is therefore too severe a place 

 for " infants." As regards the Roses named, I knew but few 

 of them. Andre Dunand I never saw in bloom, but spoke 

 only of its deficient growth. I do not, however, think Mr. 

 Hinton's comment is much in its favour. Two great deficien- 

 cies in Roses are insufficiency of centre petals and substance 

 of petals. One of the " miserables " I spoke of was Capt. 

 Lamure. I had it, also H. Pages and Monsieur Cordier, two 

 yeai-s on trial, and never had a decent bloom of either, and so 

 I discarded them. 



I will now speak of such Roses as were grown here, and then 

 of those I saw in the nursery at Elandford. Those grown hero 

 — Baroness Uxkull, planted out under glass, was most beau- 

 tiful. Baron de Bonstetten did not bloom freely in the same 



