Mr 



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HORTIOTILTUEAL SOCIETY. 



tents were too large, the expanse of canvas too wide for ordinary 

 precautions to sustain ; tliere was more canvas in one of tliese 

 tents tlian in all the sails of a line-of-battle ship. The Garden 

 too, altliough it looks cosy and sheltered, is at times the very 

 temple of iEolus, the wind rushing down from the Exhibition 

 Building into the corners where the tents stood, with the fury 

 of a tornado. Such was the case in the month of June. April 

 and May had passed without the usual heavy gales which foUow 

 the equinox ; these came in the middle of Jime, and after two 

 or three days' tempestuous weather the tents began to give 

 way. That over the Great Show ground, having at that time 

 nothing below it, was easily and early lowered, and suffered little 

 damage. The tent over the American Show was in a very 

 different position. 



The cultivation of Ehododendrons, Azaleas, Kalmias, &c., has 

 for a very long time been one of the sjaecialties of Messrs. 

 Waterer and Godfrey, nurserymen at Woking. Their nursery 

 dates back for about a century, and contains the original plants 

 of some of these shrubs first brought to this country. They have 

 many acres covered with plants of these kinds so large that they 

 may more properly be called trees than shrubs. These nursery- 

 men undertook to fill the space of ground set apart for them in 

 the Society's Garden with a continuous and successive display of 

 American plants during the period when they are in flower, and 

 in fulfilment of this undertaking they had planted a large number 

 of fine specimens of rare and valuable hardy Ehododendrons, 

 Azaleas, and Kalmias. These came into flower about the 1st of 

 June, and formed what was called the American Show. WhUst it 

 was at its very best the gale came, the immense expanse of canvas 



