26 THE FLOWER GARDEN. 



newspapers professedly monopolised by horticultural 

 subjects. Even during the last year two new So- 

 cieties have sprung up in the metropolis the Lon- 

 don Floricultural and the Royal Botanic each taking 

 a line of its own, distinct though not antagonistically 

 so, from that of any previously formed institution ; 

 and both, we believe, prospering, and likely to 

 prosper. 



Many of" our readers, who have heard of a fashion- 

 able, and a scientific, and a sporting, and (stranger 

 name still !) a religious WORLD, may perhaps be in 

 unhappy ignorance of the floricultural one. But 

 such indeed there is, with its own leaders, language, 

 laws, exclusiveness nay, even its party bitternesses 

 and personal animosities. And shameful indeed it 

 is that such pure and simple objects should be the 

 source of the unseemly quarrels and bickerings which 

 are too often obtruded into floricultural publications ; 

 that men should extract " envy and malice and all 

 uncharitablencss " out of " the purest of all human 

 pleasures " 



" Even as those bees of Trebizond, 



Which from the sunniest flowers that glad 

 With their pure smile the garden round 

 Draw venom forth that drives men mad ! " 



Lalla Rookh. 



The division of labour, both in the horticultural 

 and floricultural world, is carried to an extent that 

 the uninitiated little dream of. There are not only 

 express exhibitions for each particular plant that has 

 been adopted into the family of " florist's flowers " 

 as for the tulip, dahlia, pink, and heartsease but 



