PROGRESS IN CHRYSANTHEMUMS. 



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throw some light on the nature and rapidity of progress in the 

 development of floral qualities. Valuable aid in such a study- 

 may be derived from the catalogue of large Chrysanthemums, 

 given in the " Garden Oracle " for 1889. This catalogue 

 contains the names of about 1,760 varieties, with names of 

 raisers, dates of distribution, class, and colour of flower, the 

 whole arranged in alphabetical order for convenience of reference. 

 With this before me, I take a list of the incurved varieties that 

 are now in favour, and I make comparisons. It happens that 

 incurved varieties at this time generally recognised as worthy 

 of cultivation do not exceed a hundred in number ; but while 

 I deal with certainties, apart from doubts and speculations, I 

 cannot extend the list beyond eighty. We will now consider 

 how they rank in order of time. 



The very first note to be made is in the nature of a startler. 

 It is that Queen of England, still unsurpassed for beauty, the 

 universal favourite as a model of form, and in all other respects 

 worthy of its name, heads the list as the oldest of the series, 

 and dating from the year 1847, when the first Chrysanthemum 

 Society was but newly born and had almost everything to learn 

 in the way of business, for in the same year it held its first 

 exhibition. Shall we venture to say we have in this flower an 

 embodiment of the highest floral qualities, and that in a run of 

 forty years we have obtained nothing to surpass it ? I will not 

 venture on a declaration that can have no basis, in fact, apart 

 from individual opinion. It is enough now to say that the late 

 John Salter raised this true queen of queenly flowers, and that 

 it exercised a potent influence on English taste which may be 

 said to have culminated in the formal adoption in the year 1851 

 of the incurved form as the official form, or say the form that 

 should have precedence of all others on the show table. 



In the brief review I am now attempting the Queen stands 

 alone. I find no other flower amongst modern favourites of 

 earlier date than the year 1852, which claims Beauty and Arigena. 

 The year 1856 gives us Alfred Salter, which has no companion 

 in the list of modern favourites. We meet with nothing in the 

 two years that follow, but 1859 gives us Barbara, Golden Queen 

 of England, Jardin des Plantes, and Yellow Perfection. From 

 this time the successive years are somewhat uniformly represented, 

 as thus : 1860, Novelty ; 1861, Lady liar ding e ; 1862, Empress 



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