A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE CHRYSANTHEMUM. 



119 



tion, and an historical point of no little importance is that Non- 

 pareil, an incurved variety often met with now, is attributed to 

 Mr. Freestone. 



Concurrently with the extension and popularisation of our 

 favourite, a German horticulturist published in 1833 the first - 

 known treatise on its history and culture. It must also be 

 recorded that several attempts at classifying the kinds then 

 known occurred about this time, the principal one being that drawn 

 up by Mr. A. H. Haworth. The year 1834 began with fifty- 

 three varieties being known, but the number was soon to be 

 increased to a large extent. An amateur in Jersey raised a 

 number of seedlings about 1835, which were purchased by Mr. 

 Chandler, of Vauxhall, and upon their appearance the superior 

 qualities of the Jersey novelties were much appreciated, and at 

 the meetings of this Society Mr. Chandler became a frequent 

 exhibitor with a long-continued run of success. 



So far as can be learned from contemporary literature Chrys- 

 anthemum shows in the present sense of the word had not 

 been instituted. The earliest record is that one was held in 

 December 1836, at Swansea, and another at Birmingham in the 

 same month and year. At the latter place a specimen plant 

 with eighteen branches and over eighty flowers attracted some 

 attention, and a silver cup was awarded to its exhibitor. It was 

 the variety called the Golden Lotus-flowered Chrysanthemum, a 

 name curiously enough borne by a variety cultivated in China 

 fifty years before, with which it was probably identical. 



We must pass over the occurrences during Mr. Salter's 

 residence in France between 1838 and 1848 with but a few words. 

 He obtained a complete collection of the best kinds then grown 

 both in England and France, to which were added the most 

 valuable of the Jersey varieties, and devoted himself to the im- 

 provement of the Chrysanthemum in a way not necessary to be 

 recounted before a meeting like this. 



The year 1846 was the beginning of a new epoch in our 

 subject. Mr. Kobert Fortune had been sent to China at the 

 instance of this Society on a botanical expedition, and during 

 his absence he despatched to this country many horticultural 

 rarities. The flora of the Celestial Empire was not then so 

 familiar to us as now, and among the treasures he obtained 

 were two small-flowering varieties of Chrysanthemums grown 



