SPECIMEN PLANTS. 333 



their own blooms without these supports, than which nothing 

 can be more displeasing to a person of any taste. Stove and 

 greenhouse plants, pent up in wire cages, and their shoots 

 drawn through the wires that their blooms may be exhibited 

 on the surface ; in fact, the most graceful and elegant natural 

 objects, are tortured into lumps which bear no affinity to the 

 proper habit of the plant; and judges, which for such displays 

 might be as well chosen from the class of milliners, haber- 

 dashers, and artificial florists, actually recognise a seeming 

 propriety in this perversion of gardening, and give premiums, 

 as it were, to encourage unnatural cultivation. We earnestly 

 beseech gardeners of independent principles and sufficient 

 skill, to repudiate all this monstrosity, to grow their plants 

 naturally, and exhibit some taste as well as talent ; for they 

 may rest assured that in the long run the public will recog- 

 nise the beauty of nature, and the knowledge and taste of the 

 gardener, beyond the cunning of the mechanic and the trickery 

 of second-rate cultivation. It must be plain to persons who 

 take the trouble to think, that no deficiency of skill ought to 

 be hidden or aided by mechanical contrivance ; the man who 

 cannot grow a rose in a pot without supporters is deficient in 

 his business ; the plant that wants no assistance out of doors 

 ought to have none under glass ; we do not mean that a 

 main stem may not be supported, because the root cannot 

 spread out beyond the edge of the pot, and therefore cannot 

 have the power of resistance which it would in the open 

 ground ; but when the plant is drawn, and the branches are 

 too weak to hold themselves up in their places, there is 

 bungling somewhere. 



K we were to individualize plants that are discreditably 

 shown, because artificially supported, we might mention one 

 that is as robust as a box-tree, and yet there are specimens 

 exhibited that ought to make the exhibitor ashamed of him- 

 self — we mean Eriostemon buxifolius, a hard- wooded, elegant, 

 pyramidally growing plant, as handsome as a fir, capable of 

 sustaining itself if well grown up to any height and size ; yet 

 even this is, by some highly lauded and lavishly rewarded 

 gardeners, shown with all manner of supports, and propped 

 and wired into a form as unnatural and ungraceful as can well 

 be imagined. And we are sorry to say that, whether it be the 

 employer's taste or the gardener's, there are many other plants 

 equally distorted and spoiled among the collections, that take 



