BRIEF REMARKS. 141 



vators of these flowers, and to the proposed means of merging such dif- 

 ference. I believe every thinking florist will agree with me in regard- 

 ing the subject as one of great moment to all individually, and its 

 important bearing on the interests of floriculture cannot be questioned. 

 Speaking from experience, I can truly declare, that I have long felt 

 the necessity for bringing this question to an issue, and I presume tiiat 

 I am not singular in this experience. What then, gentlemen, is our 

 plain duty? Let us take counsel together. Should we be lukewarm 

 and indifferent, or prompt and energetic, in tlie expression of our 

 opinion, as confident in our faitli ? Can we hesitate ? Are we men 

 possessed with a reason for the faith tliat is in us, and earnestly desirous 

 of diffusing the truth ? or are we mere pretenders — empirics — seeking 

 to delude, and shunning the light? These are questions we must seve- 

 rally answer, and our future position depends on our response. Come 

 forth then, gentlemen, in your whole strength, and soon this hydra- 

 headed discord sliall melt before your might. Examine the proposition 

 fairly, give it your most attentive consideration, and I feel persuaded, 

 the more you consider it, the more will you approve the plan, and the 

 more heartily join me in rendering lionour to those who conceived and 

 who are now busily engaged in perfecting this good work. And, gen- 

 tlemen, it will be perfected. Every sign of tiie times indicates the 

 progress of our dearly-prized science, and forbids that delusion, and 

 doubt, and empiricism, shall obscure its path. All honour to tlie men 

 who have stood forth to rescue us from taint and shame, and who now 

 stand forth ready to lead to further victory. 



But one point may excite your doubts and fears ; it is proposed that 

 " the flowers be shown on cards." Let us calmly and temperately 

 reason on this. The knowledge of the truth is to be arrived at only by 

 careful research, and by wholly divesting ourselves of prejudice and 

 foregone conclusion. To this I invite you. You are told the intro- 

 duction of the card will be the prelude to every evil : that in its train 

 will come thin petals, short gouty and split pods, and all that can 

 debase our own pet flower. Can this be so ? If thin petals must of 

 necessity follow the permitting the flower to be shou n on a ground, 

 how is it that the pansy, a flower always so exhibited, has attained the 

 substance it now possesses ? And as to the possibility of admitting split 

 pods, tlie asserters of such a fact must be strangely ignorant of the 

 a])p]icalion of the card, or presume wonderfully on your gullibility ; for 

 if I have read " your annals" right, no pod is a split pod, unless the 

 division reach the sub-calyx ; and as the length of the pod above tiie 

 sub-calyx is on an average full an inch or upwards, how a card the six- 

 teenth or twentieth part of an inch in thickness, can cover an inch or 

 more, I am indeed at a loss to discover. It is merely an illustration 

 how iar men may go when blinded by passion or prejudice. But this 

 is not all. You are told, "judges cannot discriminate the better flower 

 on a card." Who and what, then, are judges? Are they abstract 

 creations, of different requirement to all ordinary men ? or are tiiey not, 

 if of the best, merely exhibitors of tlie highest class? And you, exhi- 

 l)itors, do not you invariably discriminate tlie better flower on cards? 

 Is it not your regular practice to select your flowers for exhibition 

 whilst on cards? Why then should you question the ability of men 



