Hor'ticidtural Society and Garden. 231 



Black Hamburgh Grapes; Pyrus Bollv/illericlna, Dec., Pollveria, Lin., from 

 Mr. Thomas Gibbs of the Brompton nursery, F.H.S. ; Nancy Apple, and 

 two collections of Apples. 



From the Gat-den of the Society. Flowers of China Asters, Autumn- 

 flowering ten-week Stocks, and African and French Marigolds. Five sorts 

 of Beets ; Early Vienna Kohl Rabi, and Blue Kohl Rabi. Fruits of Black 

 Jamaica and White Providence Pine-apples, four sorts of Peaches, Pitmaston 

 Orange Nectarines, Chasselas Precoce Grapes, and twenty sorts of Apples. 



Fete in the Chiswick Garden. — Sir, — Although a constant reader of the 

 Gardener's Magazine, and necessarily occasionally dissenting from the opi- 

 nions delivered in it, yet I have seldom found those of its conductor of a 

 character at variance with good sense and moderation. I was, therefore, 

 not a little astonished to find him, in his last number, advocating one of the 

 worst of the numerous bad measures which have been resorted to by the 

 Council of the Horticultural Society, to bolster up its extravagance and 

 bad management ; for I cannot, in justice, blame that Society for a measure 

 in which the members were as little consulted as they are upon every othei 

 measure connected with the administration of its affairs. I refer to the 

 fete, or afternoon's cold collation, given in the garden at Chiswick, on the 

 25d of July last. 



In descanting upon such a prostitution of the grounds of the Society, 

 and the impropriety of the Society, as one of your correspondents justly 

 remarks, becoming the pander to the sickly appetite for amusement of the 

 fashionable world, I might enlarge upon the folly of the whole transaction ; 

 or, admitting that it was proper, upon the illiberal, calculating, and paltry 

 trading cunning in which it was conducted, and the true Venetian spirit with 

 which the Council has since smothered every attempt at enquiry into the 

 manner of treating the members of the Society on that occasion ; as well as 

 the spiritless forbearance of the members, in submitting to be trampled upon 

 by the Council. But this letter is addressed to you, not to the Horticultural 

 Society, of which I am almost ashamed to acknowledge that I am a member. 

 Your conscience forces you to acknowledge that the deviation from pro- 

 priety, in mixing up science, or, as you ought to have said, what is meant 

 to be science, and fashion, strikes at first sight ; and that the repetition of 

 such fetes frequently in the course of the season, would be reprehensible. 

 " But what can be more harmless than such a fete once a year ? " Now* 

 Sir, answer me in the spirit of candour, on what grounds do you draw such a 

 conclusion ? If the garden, as the Council have assured the members, has 

 not suffered, — if the receipts have more than paid the expenses, — and, if 

 the Society, proh pudor ! have pocketed a handsome surplus, for what can 

 reprehension be incurred, if this fete should be given once a month instead 

 of once a year ? Are you alarmed for its effects upon the morals of the 

 fashionable visitors to the garden on these occasions ? or for the example of 

 dissipation which it displays to the gardeners ? or are you afraid that the re- 

 peated remonstrances of the more sober and thinkingmembers oftheSociety, 

 of those who are really in earnest and anxious to see the garden applied to 

 the purposes forwhich it was originally intended, may become too loud to be 

 drowned by the authoritative mandate of a vice-president, and lead to an open 

 rebellion ? Sir, if the thing would be bad were it repeated once a month, 

 it cannot be good even if it be confined to once a year. I would ask you to 

 say where, and at what period, has science ever thriven under the auspices of 

 fashion ? or can there be any union more monstrous than that which has 

 been occasionally attempted between them ? The Horticultural Society 

 and its garden were established for purposes over which fashion ought to 

 have no control ; not only to supply the tables of the rich with the luxuries 

 of the vegetable world from every quarter of the globe, but to add to the 

 comforts of the poor, to naturalise in the garden of the cottager the less 



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