July 4, 1872. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



me — indeed, I should not like myself — if I were to forget the 

 calling of my profession. I say this to you, that you never spend 

 any money which is safe except the money you give in true 

 charity. Be generous, as you hope for comfort in your own time 

 of need. " Give, and it shall be given to you." " He who con- 

 siders the poor, the Lord shall be with him in the time of visita- 

 tion." Ladies and gentlemen, the toast I have to give yon is 

 " Continued Success and Prosperity to the Gardeners' Royal 

 Benevolent Institution," and I shall couple with the toast the 

 name of Henry Huggins Esq., the Chairman of ne Stewards. 



The toast was drunk with three times three, and amidst long 

 and prolonged cheering. 



Mr. H. Huggins returned thanks, and said he could endorse 

 the observations which had been made by the Chairman as to 

 the benefits to be derived from the Institution. As one of the 

 Committee of Management he could conscientiously say that 

 the Institution was well worthy of the best consideration of all 

 present, and he hoped, under the able presidency of the Chair- 

 man, the Anniversary Festival would have for the Society a 

 most beneficial result. [Cheers.] Had the Secretary told him 

 that his name would have been coupled with the toast, he should 

 have prepared some remarks and statistics which might have 

 proved, interesting to the company. As it was, he hoped they 

 would respond liberally to the appeal rnade by the Chairman.? 



Mr. Edmund Yates then proposed the health of the Chair- 

 man. He said that he was aware that frankness was one of the 

 horticultural virtues, because once when he ventured to give 

 advice to a gardener the latter told him to leave him to himself, 

 as he (Mr. Yates) knew nothing at all about the matter. 

 [Laughter.] Emulating that frankness he was about to take 

 them all into his confidence, and inform them that he had been 

 betrayed in a most dastardly manner. The duty which devolved 

 upon him was to propose the health of the Chairman. [Cheers.] 

 He had not the slightest doubt that it was on account of his 

 total ignorance of gardening that the toast had been given to 

 him. [Laughter.] Ever since the early day when, with 

 most tremendous astonishment, he saw his own initials in 

 Mustard and Cress — ever since he endeavoured on leads to 

 ■cultivate Ivy — "a slow-growing plant" [laughter] — which was 

 much damaged by cats in London [laughter] , he had not the 

 remotest connection with flori or horti-culture. But he knew 

 their Chairman, and whilst they might speak of his floricultural 

 and horticultural talents, he (Mr. Yates) could speak of him as a 

 literary man, a Christian clergyman, and an English gentleman. 

 [Loud cheers]. Until this evening he had no knowledge of the 

 Chairman's remarkable power of eloquence, and he was perfectly 

 certain there would be now a new era in English literature, and 

 that his friend Tom Hood would receive a new contributor of 

 jokes to Fun. [Laughter and applause.] He begged to give 

 " The health of the Chairman, the Rev. Reynolds Hole. 

 ; The Chairman, in acknowledging the compliment, said it was 

 little more than twenty years since the greatest writer of the 

 ■century, at all events the writer who was read more than any 

 other — Charles Dickens — occupied that chair, and he (Mr. Hole) 

 considered it a great honour indeed to sit where he did on that 

 occasion. It was also a great gratification to him to have his 

 health proposed by one of his most dear and intimate friends. 

 Before he sat down he begged to propose "The Corporation of the 

 City of London," coupled with the name of Sir John Bennett. 



Sir John Bennett replied in a humorous speech. 



The other toasts of the evening were " The Horticultural and 

 Botanical Societies of England," " The Patrons and Friends of 

 Horticulture," "The Nursery and Seed Trade'," "The Secre- 

 tary," and " The Ladies." 



BEDDING-OUT. 



By the Rev. C. P. Peach. 



(Read before the Horticultural Congress at Birmingham.) 



I was going to have begun this paper with a short history of 

 the bedding-out system, but the time allotted for each paper 

 would hardly he sufficient to give any general summary that 

 would be of interest to my hearers. Suffice it to say, that 

 though in some few places the plan of massing beds of separate 

 kinds of flowers had begun more than twenty years ago, yet it 

 may fairly be stated that as a general custom it has been 

 introduced within the last twenty years, and we may almost 

 date its advent into popular notice from the days of the first 

 introduction of Tom Thumb Geranium and Purple King 

 Yerbena. 



However, my object to-day is to defend the system against 

 its present detractors, as I think nothing in the history of 

 gardening has tended so much to spread the love of flowers 

 and to make gardening popular amongst so many people as 

 this plan which so rapidly sprung up into favour ; so that we 

 may safely say there are thousands of plants used now where 

 previously they might be counted by hundreds and tens, and 



hundreds of gardens are gay now during the summer months 

 where previously a few untidy borders of neglected perennials 

 existed. This spread of the bedding-out system — of planting 

 out, that is to say, plants in reference to their colour, habit of 

 growth, form, and choosing plants that are most persistent in 

 their bloom, instead of merely planting mixed borders indis- 

 criminately — has done more to create and establish a love of 

 plants than all the other systems which preceded it. 



Now, it is very easy to find fault with bedding-out ; it is 

 very easy to say it is vulgar, and that it is a mere massing of 

 gorgeous colours — a heap of scarlet Geraniums here, and a lot 

 of yellow Calceolarias there ; it is very easy to say that it is 

 causing persons to neglect the old perennials, alpine plants, 

 flowering shrubs, and so on. It is always, I think, more easy 

 to find fault than it is to give judicious praise. Take an 

 amateur, for instance, through a picture gallery, who thinks 

 himself a good judge of painting, and how much oftener you 

 will find him criticising the faults than stopping to admire the 

 beauties. He will say, " Oh, there is too bright a green here, 

 too glaring a red there, a want of half-tones in this, a defici- 

 ency in high lights in that, and so on perhaps through every 

 picture in the Royal Academy ; never stopping to point out 

 the beauties, but criticising any defect, or perhaps damning a 

 really fine picture with faint praise. And so I think it is 

 much the case with bedding-out. It is much easier to point 

 out defects than it is to praise what is good ; it is easier to 

 give a sweeping condemnation of the whole system than to 

 show what is right and what is wrong, and to discriminate 

 between what is worthy of imitation and what is to be 

 avoided. 



Now, I am not going in this paper to enter upon a general 

 and indiscriminate defence of the whole system, but I want to 

 show that there is no wisdom in condemning it merely because 

 in many instances it is done without either taste or refinement. 

 I think every nobleman, gentleman, or amateur who cares 

 about a garden should not only have his garden for spring and 

 summer bedding plants, but also an herbaceous and perennial 

 border (which should havea background of shrubs) ; a rosery, 

 an alpine rockery, and a place for growing Ferns ; but I would 

 not mix them up together where it could be avoided, as they are 

 much better kept separate and distinct. An herbaceous border 

 can never be made to look in harmony with highly dressed 

 ground, nor does it look well in front of the windows of a 

 house ; and for that reason I would no* mix up the two together, 

 but endeavour to keep the garden near to the house for spring 

 and summer plants. I also wish to point ou.t that to carry out 

 the bedding system well, to make a garden not only gay and 

 rich in colouring through all the summer months, but inter- 

 esting and instructive, not only to those who grow or own 

 the plants but to all who see it, is by no means an easy thing, 

 and requires not only taste and judgment and a knowledge of 

 the habits of plants, but also skill in the harmony of form and 

 colour. Nor do I, again, think it is wise, when we know how 

 much bedding-out has done to make gardening popular. "When 

 we see our public parks in London and other large towns ap- 

 preciated by so many of the lower orders, and principally, I 

 affirm, because they can now see in great perfection some of 

 the most beautiful objects of God's world — flowers, which they 

 never would have seen had it not been for the spread of the 

 system of planting-out the beds afresh every year ; because the 

 old herbaceous and perennial plants, of which there is so much 

 talk now, could never have lived year after year amid the 

 smoke and dust of our great towns — when, I say, we find that 

 this system gives so much pleasure, and that of the purest 

 kind, to the working classes, I do not think it wise to raise 

 this present outcry against bedding-out on the score of its 

 being vulgar and gaudy. 



What I think has tended to give some persons a distaste to 

 bedding-out is that many people who have not proper ap- 

 pliances and means to boot adopt the system, and make the 

 interest of their garden entirely depend on the summer bedding, 

 when, at the best, it is only a makeshift with them. I will not 

 speak now of spring or winter bedding-out, the first of which 

 I can highly recommend to those who have the proper means 

 and amount of space to give over to it, and which, to a certain 

 extent, can always be made to work well with summer bedding- 

 out, even where the whole garden is not devoted to it. With 

 regard to the latter, it has never yet given me the least plea- 

 sure when I have seen it. Winter is such a dreary time in a 

 garden — with snow and frost, damp grass and wet walks, and 

 dull and dark weather — that it is hardly worth while to fill 

 beds with evergreens or coloured Kales, and make patterns, aa 



