NINETEENTH CENTURY 285 



The quantity of flowers available for the embellishment 

 of gardens was multiplied with extraordinary rapidity. Not 

 only were new species pouring in from every quarter of the 

 globe, but no sooner were they in the hands of horticulturalists 

 than garden or " florists' " varieties were added by the score. 

 The florists' varieties of Begonia, Gloxinia, Geranium, Cycla- 

 men, Cineraria, Primula, Streptocarpus, Carnations, Achi- 

 menes, Chrysanthemum, Violas, Dahlias, Asters, Verbenas, 

 Cannas, and many such-like things, were unknown during the 

 early part of last century. Donald Beaton, writing his recol- 

 lections in 1854 of his early life as a gardener, tells how he 

 remembers seeing the first Petunia that ever flowered in this 

 country at Lower Boughton, near Manchester, and the first 

 Calceolaria in the Epsom Nursery. The institution of Shows 

 and Awards of Merit has doubtless done much to stimulate 

 the energy of florists and promote the production of new 

 varieties. In Thomas Hogg's treatise on the culture of the 

 carnation and other flowers in 1820, he submits the Rules of 

 two " Societies of Florists," in Islington and Chelsea, which 

 had been started some years previously for encouraging the 

 cultivation of " Auriculas, Pinks, and Carnations." There 

 were, he says, " several other societies of the same description 

 in the neighbourhood of London, but these two are not only the 

 most numerous in point of numbers, but likewise the most 

 respectable in regard to the mem.bers composing them." The 

 Rules of this Society are given at length. The subscription 

 was £1 IIS. 6d. a year, and the value of the prizes, six in 

 number, was presented to the successful candidates on Show 

 Days. On the appointed days a dinner was held, and each 

 member had to buy a dinner-ticket for the Auricula, the 

 Carnation, and Pink shows. The flowers were judged by three 

 members selected from among those present, and the flowers 

 passed round the table while all were sitting at dinner, " be- 

 ginning on the President's right hand, and returning on his 

 left, in order that each person may distinctly view them." 

 By 1850 a large number of such societies had been started, 

 particularly in the Midlands. In Bradford, Ashton-under- 

 Lyne, Leeds, Stockport, Leicester, Blackburn, Halifax, New- 

 castle, and nearly all the manufacturing towns, the shows of 



