194 THE FLORIST AND 



It may be some time before this beautiful plant is imported into 

 this country ; but we know that our enterprizing nurserymen and 

 amateurs will obtain it as soon as it finds its way into the hands of 

 the trade in Europe. 



HISTORY AND CULTIVATION. 

 Few plants have a greater claim on the American plant grower 

 than the Begonia. It has been too much the habit to sigh after, 

 and bewail the want of "Chiswick Heaths," and other things which 

 do not do well in America, to the manifest neglect of many beauti- 

 ful things which do. It is time we had ceased to be the mere copy- 

 ists of English horticulture. We have so rapidly advanced, that 

 we should aim at an independence that can be achieved ; and, as in 

 government so in gardening, take our place as one of the horticul- 

 tural "nations of the earth." We have been a "colony of Chis- 

 wick and Edinboro," "Paris and Ghent" hitherto; we have experi- 

 enced on every occasion slights and neglects; whatever we do is 

 passed over in silence, and whatever we discover remains unno- 

 ticed or is scorned. These are some of our greivances. All our 

 horticultural papers have taken up the subject in turn, and pressed 

 our claims on English journalists ; but how have they been met? 

 A private letter on the success of one individual plant has been pub- 

 lished in one magazine ; and two hybrid Peonys have been named 

 in Belgium in honor of Americans. Perhaps once a year a short 

 extract in the Revue horticole on Forsythia viridissima from the Hor- 

 ticulturist ; or, a notice in the Gardener's Chronicle of how to preserve 

 Tomatoes from Hovey's Magazine. We must have done with whining 

 and complaining about these things. Let us strike out new courses 

 for ourselves. We may never hope to excel them in Heaths, Pan- 

 sies, Calceolarias, or many other things, as a general rule, nor is it 

 desirable we should. Let them boast of their excellence ; we will 

 raise another standard. 



The Begonia is peculiarly adapted to become such a plant as I 

 have described. Requiring in England a moist and very artificial 

 atmosphere, it does not make any very great progress in popular es- 

 timation. Here it thrives with very common care ; all doing in a 



