^ Rot done p 
27—1846.] 
“THE GARDENERS’ 
CHRONICLE, 
443 
IS GRACE the DUKE of DEVONSHIRE, | differ'as to this matter ; and we willingly quit it for 
PRESIDENT of the HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, has | the much more important consideration of the prin- 
Kindly directed the grounds of Chiswick-house to be opened for 
the reception of the visitors to the Society's garden at the next 
exhibition on the 11th July.—Tickets are issued to the orders 
of Fellows of the Society ONLY at this office, price 5s., or at 
the garden in the afternoon of the 11th July, at 7s. 6d. each, 
but then also ONLY TO ORDERS SIGNED BY FELLOWS OF THE 
Socinry.—N.B. No tickets will be issued in Regent-street on 
the day of exhibition. 21, Regent-street, 
RIED PLANTS FROM CHINA.—A few sets of 
` Hewanp, Esq. Young-street, Kensington, London. Amon; 
B 
them are many new and rare species scarcely known to Euro- 
ans, 
The Gardeners’ Chronicle, 
SATURDAY, JULY 4, 1846. 
MEETINGS FOR THE FOLLOWING WEEK. 
Tunspav, July 7—Horticultural  . . . . 3ra 
Sarunpay, — 11—Horticultural Gardens ù | — 1 wx. 
COUNTRY SHOW. 
WznssspAy, July 8-Craven Horticultural. 
. Tmar the old Poraro Disease is again making 
its appearance very generally is now unhappily 
beyond all question. Every post brings us intelli- 
Sence of its having commenced its attacks, and that, 
too, where every conceivable precaution had been 
taken to guard against it. e would, therefore, 
‘earnestly recommend our friends to examine their 
crops without loss ofitime. They should pull up the 
haulm, or dig it up, down to the old set ; if disease 
is beginning, they will find the skin of the haulm 
rown and blotched, or even brittle if it has made 
much progress ; if, however, the haulm is clear co- 
loured, or colourless, the crop is safe for the present. 
is is a much better mode of examination than 
trusting to the look of the leaves, which will remain 
teen and healthy long after the evil has begun 
Underground, 
lr will not have escaped attention that in our 
two last Papers communications have been inserted 
Concerning the Awanp or rur Jupezs appointed by 
€ Horticunrurar Socrrry to determine the 
merits'of the Fruir at the last meeting in the So- 
Ciety’s Garden at Chiswick. Their award was cri- 
ticised by * A. Fruit Grower, not an Exhibitor,” and 
the Critic has been answered by two of the judges. 
pu Sides have now been heard ; the discussion 
as also. produced some private communications, 
and we now proceed to express our own opinion 
Upon the subject. 
elore we do so, we: shall, however, dispose of 
an objection that bas been taken to this discussion, 
on the ground that we should not have allowed the 
Celsion of the judges to be called in question. 
othing can be more-absurd than such a remark; 
nothing can be more short-sighted than such a 
py as it indicates ; nothing more unjust to the ex- 
ibitors, or more detrimental to the high character 
of the judges, who would be the first. to court, not 
deprecate, inquiry. It would seem as if to question 
an award was, in the opinion of some persons, tanta- 
Mount tothe reversalofit. But the judgesof the land 
are open to criticism for their public conduct, and 
much the better forit: and why should dignitaries 
of a lower order be exempt? All that we, or any 
‘ne else, ought to demand in such a matter is that 
the charges to be considered shall be reasonable, 
Specific, conveyed in becoming language, and pro- 
duced by a person of good reputation, not a mere 
qu or calumniator. Those conditions have 
een fulfilled to the letter on the present occasion. 
he Writer who complains of the fruit award, is 
Pinion that the judges should not be over strict, 
Should induce a man to show collections of 
by very liberal conduct; because, if a gardener 
get more money by showing his fruit separately, 
an in a collection, he will do so to the detriment 
the exhibition. The complainant would there- 
Ore have collections encouraged, which he says is 
of [o 
but 
fruit 
can 
th; 
of 
A 2e by the judges, whom he charges with being 
quer-ritieal, penurious, and unfair And he ad- 
uces the treatment of a collection of fruit from Her 
coe stY’s Garden at Frogmore; as a proof of his 
omplaint being well founded. 
A e cannot undertake to say, of our own know- 
Ys what force there may be in the last state- 
fr "t, for we had no opportunity of examining the 
Uit upon the occasion in question. As the fruit pro- 
Reo by Mr. Inaramis among the finest in the king- 
Bae presumption would doubtless bethat he could 
he, aave furnished an inferior collection. We must, 
RUE observe, that not only does one of the 
ue si maintain that the award was right, but that 
i» nave before us a letter signed, * A Market Gar- 
E who well knows what fruit should be, and was 
aa atthe judges having given morethan a silver 
ace al for the collection said to have been treated 
t iidem We may, therefore, reasonably conclude 
Opinions, among equally competent observers, 
ciples by which judges should be guided in deciding 
the merits of fruit, and the complainant's general 
allegation of unfaizness, penuriousness, and over- 
criticism. 
One of the judges states in reply to his accuser 
that instead of being penurious they ara the reverse, 
having often given exhibitors prizes of higher value 
than was merited. "This is admitted by the com- 
plainant, whose disapprobation seems indeed to have 
been majnly produced by the judges having dis- 
ConGudd that practice. In fact, he would have 
the judges give a man more than he deserves to- 
day, for the sake of enticing others to become com- 
petitors to-morrow, in the hope that they too may 
get more than they merit. Such is, we believe, the 
true meaning of the complainant’s argument. Is 
that right? Surely not. 
If you authorise or encourage judges to act thus 
you render their awards an arbitrary act; y 
release them from all necessity for careful consider- 
ation of the matters brought before them ; and you 
reduce the process of rewarding merit to a mere 
exercise of caprice. In short,for law you substi- 
tute despotism. In our opinion it is the plain duty 
of the judges to decide according to the rules that 
are placed before them ; not to swerve to the right 
or the left for fear or for favour; and most espe- 
cially not to allow considerations of expediency to 
interfere with their judgment. The only license 
which is permissible is, when a reasonable. doubt 
exists as to the kind of medal which an exhibitor 
can claim, then to give him the benefit of that doubt. 
The rules laid down by the Horticultural Society 
for the guidance of the Fruit judges are these :— 
All fruit must be FULLY ripe and WELL COLOURED and 
PROPERLY NAMED by the Exhibitor as far as practicable ; 
if tlie contrary it will be disqualified. 
Exhibitors of collections of Fruit should bear in mind 
that however fine one or two of the kinds in their col- 
lection may be, they cannot gain a prize unless they 
furnish at /east three different kinds of fruit of first-rate 
quality. 
The judges have the power of inereasing or diminish- 
ing the number and value of the Silver Medals offered 
by the Society for particular objeets, and also of com- 
ferring Silver Medals or Certificates in cases not con- 
templated in these regulations, if they think it necessary 
to do so. ` 
The judges are also not to make any award in cases 
where the objects exhibited do not appear worthy of a 
Medal ; otherwise a bad single exhibition might obtain 
a prize, merely beeause there is no better exhibition of 
the same class to oppose it. 
Are these rules unreasonable or injudicious? One 
person says they are; another that they are not. 
For ourselves we can discover nothing in them 
which is objectionable ; for what do they exact be- 
yond what every master would demand of his gar- 
dener at his own table, namely perfect ripeness? 
As to the remainder of the regulations they are so 
obviously necessary that it is needless to advert to 
them. One of the judges thinks, however, that 
ripeness is too much insisted on ; because fully-ripe 
fruit travels badly, and will not keep. We do not 
think there js much in this argument ; for the rule 
does not require over-ripeness, nor can it be applied 
very rigorously. It is intended to exclude unripe 
fruit, which no one will pretend ought to be made a 
subject of exhibition, although we have seen it pro- 
duced in a state which betrayed a lamentable want 
of judgment on the part of the exhibitor. Sour 
Grapes, hard Peaches, or Nectarines, and green 
Pine-apples are certainly not what medals are in- 
tended for. But it is said that demanding fruit to 
be ripe and fine limits the quantity, and prevents 
a grand display. We will be no party to such an 
imputation upon English gardeners; for they are 
the last men against whom it should be charged that 
they cannot produce all that is demanded. Nor is 
it desirable to see a table loaded with fruit no better 
than may be seen in Covent Garden Market. Those 
who are anxious to gaze on heaps of middling fruit 
may do so any day without the trouble of attending 
an exhibition. 
_ But it must be obvious to any one that medals 
given away to undeserving objects can have no 
value in the eyes of the world ; and that their im- 
portance rises in exact proportion to the difficulty 
of procuring them, Exhibitors, therefore, in- 
stead of complaining of the rigour of the judges 
are, of all men, those who should uphold it. If they 
do not, and if judges allow themselves to be per- 
suaded to be what is called liberal, a gold medal 
will be as worthless as some of those knighthoods 
which have been unwisely distributed with such 
profusion, that nobody now-a-days will pick them 
up. It is, however, alleged that it is not the 
honour of the thing that exhibitors look to, but the 
money value of it; that it is quite a mistake to sup- 
pose gardeners to have that high feeling of honest 
o 
S 
pride at being victors in an honourable competi- 
tion, which distinguishes or should distinguish other 
classes of Society. We utterly repudiate such an 
opinion, which rests on no sort of foundation, unless, 
indeed, a few sordid exceptional cases are to be 
taken as the rule. Indeed, the smallness of the in~ 
trinsic-value of theprizesfor which gardeners contend 
is the best proof of their being influenced by honour- 
able ambition, and not by the mean desire of win- 
ning money. Ifthe time should ever come when 
Mammon is the object of a gardener’s worship, he 
will sink to the level of a blackleg, and there the 
world will leave him. 
That the judges are not unfair is so universally 
admitted that we can only suppose our correspon- 
dent to have used the term hastily, and not in the 
common acceptation of the term. That they are 
not penurious is sufficiently proved by their having, 
at the very exhibition in question, given away more 
than twice the number of medals offered for Grapes, 
Pines, and Peaches and Nectarines; and that for a 
show of fruit, by no means remarkable, 38 medals, 
of the money value of 687., were, in fact, assigned. 
In short, we are bound to say that the complaint 
that has been made is not sustained by argument 
or evidence, and we therefore honourably acquit the 
defendants. 
SUCCULENTS. 
Havre some years since commenced the formation 
of a collection of succulents, and built a house expressly 
for them, and they having now repaid their culture by 
perfecting their grotesque forms and producing an 
abundanee of blossom, perhaps a short account of them 
may not be void of interest. 
I think it was in the spring of the year 1835 that I 
received an invitation to visit the gardens at Woburn 
Abbey, but it was not till the month of June that I 
could avail myself of the opportunity. I had always, 
and my father before me, grown ‘a few succulents. I 
had seen those of the old Chelsea Gardens, and of the 
then Kew Gardens, besides the collections at. Brussels, 
and others in France and the Netherlands. But when 
Mr. Forbes opened the door of the new succulent house, 
containing, as it did, hundreds of forms that were new to 
me, and arranged in a manner to give complete effect, 
I was overpowered with surprise. The late Duke of Bed- 
ford with that ifi that partieularly distin- 
guished him, did not allow me to go away empty handed. 
I took away with me small specimens of many kinds 
wholly new to me, and went home with a firm resolu- 
tion to collect and possess a.race of plants that had ex- 
cited me so powerfully. 
I soon saw that their interest was wholly lost by 
beingin any way mingled with other kinds of vegetation. 
The few I could muster. added to my new prize were 
too insignificant to form the staple of a house, so I made 
the round of the London nurseries, buying wherever 
anything could be found that I did not possess. I re- 
member on this oceasion to. have purchased every suc- 
culent in Mr. Lowe’s collection at Clapton, amongst 
which were some newly imported. But I must not 
forget the liberality of Mr. J. Knight, of the King’s- 
road, who freely gave me any succulent he possessed 
not in my collection, and I also received considerable 
augmentation from: Mr. C. Palmer, of Shacklewell. 
With all these accessions I returned, but still found 
that many more were required to form the staple of a 
house ; so I set out to collect them in Normandy, where 
many are grown ; to Paris, and from thence through 
the Netherlands, and eventually obtained. enough to 
warrant the building a house specially for their culture. 
Thus matters have stood for the past few years ; but 
during the present spring am oeeasion of an augmenta- 
tion occurred that I could not allow to pass over. 
An amateur, who was as devotedly attached as my- 
self to this tribe, and whose occupation had frequently 
for the few past years taken him into Germany, in which 
country he made considerable purchases, determined 
upon parting from his whole stock, amongst which were 
many novelties to my collection, and also many seed- 
lings from species oddly hybridized. This entire col- 
lection I have added to my own, and together it forms 
an arrangement, that I am informed no nursery in 
England can rival. 
To the suceulent grower, I would advise not alone 
that no other kind of plant should be permitted a place 
in the house,—for they all detract; but that such 
genera as Crassula, Mesembryanthemum, except the 
dwarf species, Sempervivum, and most of the suceulents 
from the Canary islands, should be exempted also.: I 
have plants of Cereus abnormis 5 or 6 feet in height ; 
so long as they are associated with other species of 
Cereus, or Opuntia, or some Euphorbias, they pre- 
serve their stran ge character, and rivet the attention of 
the spectator; but let an overgrown Sempervivum be 
on either hand, and a large Mesembryanthemum be 
placed in front, and their character is lost, It then 
would require a practised eye to discover their merit. 
I have now grown these plants long enough to find out 
that there is much confusion in nomenclature, and this, 
no doubt, arises from the circumstance of the same 
species putting on very different aspects according to 
its age ; and also, whether it has been raised by offset, 
or from seed. So complete is this metamorphosis, that 
some kinds are perfectly turbinate at one part of their 
growth, and as globular at another ; whilst some are 
globular for years, and become columnar in their after 
+ 
