84 GARDENS OF ENGLAND 



Marliac, Vilmorin, and other hybridists and growers 

 who have made the gardens of the world finer by 

 their devotion and skill in the art of raising new 

 plants, fruits, and vegetables. 



But the British hybridists and nurserymen have 

 not received their full meed of praise, not merely in 

 the cultivation of flowers, but in bringing into life 

 new and improved forms, and this raising of new 

 flowers is one amateurs may take up with even 

 greater enthusiasm than is evident at present. 

 Already they have given us beautiful flowers. But 

 more and more they should do what Mr. Wilks has 

 done with the field poppy, and the late Lord Pen- 

 zance did with the sweet briar, the one by selection 

 and the other by hybridising and crossing ; what 

 Mr. Engleheart is doing with the daffbdUs, and Mr. 

 Caparne with the irises. Nurserymen, seedsmen, 

 and gardeners are not behindhand in this beneficent 

 work, as we see by the wonderful improvement of 

 late years in sweet peas, in great part due to the 

 labours of Mr. Eckford ; in China asters, in seedling 

 carnations, and hybrid garden roses. The careful 

 watching and delicate manipulation needed for 

 hybridisation should especially appeal to the 

 leisured garden-lover ; it is mostly, and most easily, 

 in plants raised from seed that good new kinds may 



