*78 DIAGRAMS OF THE " GAEDENEIt's MAGAZINE OF BOTANY." 



tiers " comprised of," as he calls it, " forty-two petals, a goodly 

 number," lie observes, " to come out of a calyx the size of a lady's 

 thimble," I beg, with great deference to this dictatorial gentleman, to 

 remind him that there is no condition as to the size of the calyx, and 

 whether forty-two be a goodly number of petals or not, or seven tiers 

 be a wonderful number or otherwise, I will defy him or any other 

 sensible florist to say that four rows are not better than three, that five 

 rows are not better than four ; and, further, I will defy him to show 

 that if a Carnation or Picotee could be produced in every respect as 

 perfect as the diagram, that there would be a possibility of improving 

 it. He says, " If these had appeared before the trial exhibitions, surely 

 there would have been just cause for our northern friends disclaiming 

 the southern model of a perfect Picotee." It is evident that this 

 gentleman is half a century behind in his knowledge of the floral world. 

 The diagrams complained of, as if a new grievance to this floral 

 Solomon, were as familiar to the majority of those who attended the 

 trial exhibition as some of the flowers themselves. The diagrams had 

 been published and approved many years. The northern growers never 

 objected to the southern models of what a flower ought to be, they only 

 objected to the souther?), mops, in which there were too many petals 

 without form. The northern never quarrelled, and never would 

 quarrel, with any number of tiers of perfect petals forming " a rosette," 

 they quarrelled with the number of ragged petals not in tiers. The 

 rigmarole in which the silly stuff we have quoted appears is signed 

 Benjamin Vialls, and I would recommend him another time to be a 

 little less flippant in his attacks upon things above his comprehension. 

 Dictatorial and flippant letters do not come well even from acknow- 

 ledged authorities, but from an inexperienced aspirant to the honour of 

 appearing in print, who does not. even know the work he is under- 

 rating, nor the origin of the diagrams he condemns, and who, besides, 

 is profoundly ignorant of the very objects of the author whose work he 

 affects to ridicule, it comes with a bad grace. It may be very con- 

 venient for dealers to cry up their flowers, and cry down the models 

 which show what perfection would be ; but Mr. Vialls will find it diffi- 

 cult to persuade any man of sense that you can have too many tiers of 

 perfect petals, and flowers too much like a rosette. The diagrams in 

 the Magazine are correct — they are authentic; and it is admitted, after 

 ten years' experience, that the nearer a flower coidd be got to the model 

 laid dow?i the better it ivould be. 



If Mr. Benjamin Vialls had published his notions in a book by itself, 

 with no other prestige than it would derive from his name or his sub- 

 ject, I certainly should have left him to work his way alone, but as he 

 was admitted to the pages of a periodical whose editor is looked up to, 

 and, as I before remarked, a vast majority of readers identify the editor 

 with all that appears, I considered I was only doing a service to the 

 less informed by pointing out the miserable blundering of the writer. 

 First he discovers what the author of " The Properties of Flowers " 

 told everybody many years since, and offers his security for the truth of 

 the assurance that the perfection of the models laid down never can be 

 reached, then he affirms that which the mere tyro must know to be 



