HORTICULTURAL SHOW. 45 



a pecuniary success. The long halls and winding walks of the 

 Palace garden, which last year were obstructed and cluttered up 

 with a confused display of implement, machines, manufactured 

 goods, garden products, and objects of taste and art, are this 

 year entirely devoted to the attractive, useful, and beautiful pro- 

 ducts of the field, garden, orchard, and hot-house, and there is 

 every probability of our having at last a show worthy of the 

 environs of London. The great halls are so lighted and shaped 

 as to afford every facility for a charming display of flowers, 

 shrubs, and fruits : and the mingled bright tints of the flowers, 

 seen with the appropriate background of coniferas, and deciduous 

 shrubs, are made more beautiful and acquire new charms. 



Entering the main hall, the eye takes in at once the picture of 

 a long, high-roofed room, with long tables running through its 

 whole length covered with cut flowers and potted plants ; in the 

 centre of the room a very large tank filled with water, over 

 which orchids, or air plants are hung from wooden arms ; another 

 basin into which a number of jets of water are constantly splash- 

 ing in graceful curves ; and, away back at the end of the room a 

 raised platform filled with shrubs and plants in pots. The prin- 

 cipal exhibiters in this room are Isaac Buchanan, who shows a 

 monster collection of green-house and hot-house plants, in all 

 over two hundred specimens, Louis Menand, of Albany, who also 

 has a splendid assortment of these plants, George Hamlyn, 

 gardener to Mr. Langley, of South Brooklyn, and Dr. James 

 Knight, of this city, who superintends this department of the 

 show. Dr. Knight has in his large Wardian case a remarkable 

 sj)ecimen of the A)ioectochylus setaceus whose green velvety 

 leaves with their ribs, veins, and borders of golden silk, are 

 among the rarest productions of vegetable life. This variety of 

 the anoectochylus cannot bo bought in London short of a pound 

 sterling the plant. Dr. Knight also shows a fine thrifty cinnamon 

 tree which he imported last year from Java. It is a mere shrub 

 yet, but if it grows as rapidly as it has during the past twelve- 

 months, it will be large enough by and by. The cinnamon must 

 be five years old before the bark is fit to be stripped off, dried, 

 and used as spice. Mr. Buchanan exhibits a small nutmeg plant, 

 which is probably the only one of the kind in this country. Mr. 

 Menand's collection of coniferaB is deserving of general notice, 

 both for the number of varieties, and the health and compact- 

 ness of the specimens. Buchanan has some orchids, placed ia 



