RURAL ENGLAND IN THE PAST 31 



and the products of their loving labours exhibited. 

 The first floricultural society in England was estab- 

 lished, it is said, in Spitalfields, at that time the 

 headquarters in London of the silk-weaving in- 

 dustry; and it became the source and spring of 

 all the horticultural efforts, which have gone on 

 increasing with ever new enthusiasm to this very 

 day. Wherever they went Dublin or Manchester 

 or Macclesfield they carried with them this same 

 love of cultivating flowers, and in the north, by 

 force of precept and example, it gathered as years 

 went on even greater impetus than in the south. 



Not many years ago, though most of them may 

 have disappeared before this date, there were houses 

 in that quarter of London where the long low rooms 

 with windows the length of their sides in which 

 the silk looms were set still existed, and where on 

 wide ledges pot plants could conveniently be placed. 

 In one such old-world room I have myself seen 

 a weaver at his work on some rich silken fabric, 

 which it seemed hardly possible to believe could 

 be fashioned under such conditions or in a hand- 

 loom so simple. On the broad window bench stood 

 an immense bush of oak-leaf pelargonium, the vete- 

 ran of many an East-End Flower Show, and the 

 joy and pride of the hard-working couple who were 

 occupants of the room. For the taste still lingers, 

 in spite of smoke and fog and grimy surroundings ; 

 and there are, or used to be, few windows in that 

 district without a flower pot or two. 



The opinion may be taken for what it is worth 

 that it has been mainly owing to Flemish and 

 Huguenot influence of a former day that a real 



