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JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



of the departments of gardening left to look after itself, and, 

 moreover, is one of the branches of the art in which few young 

 gardeners are trained. No special society is devoted to ornamental 

 arboriculture as in the case of other important classes of garden 

 plants, and rarely do we see at exhibition?, except those held by 

 this Society, any attempt to bring before the public the most 

 beautiful of the older kinds of hardy flowering trees and shrubs 

 and the many new varieties that are being continually introduced. 

 That a really beautiful and interesting display can be made of 

 flowering trees and shrubs alone is shown by the large and 

 magnificent collection gathered here to-day, chiefly from our 

 great national botanical garden at Kew, where, happily, there 

 exists the richest collection of temperate trees and shrubs in the 

 world, notwithstanding the fact that the soil there is not natu- 

 rally well adapted for the luxuriant growth of many classes of 

 deciduous trees and shrubs. 



It cannot be said that we have made so much progress during the 

 last half-century in the direction of trees and shrubs as we have 

 in other branches of horticulture ; indeed I am inclined to think 

 that we have retrograded since Loudon's time, when there was 

 far more attention paid to ornamental arboriculture than at the 

 present day. As evidence of this we have only to turn to the rich- 

 ness of tree-growth in old gardens and compare it with the poverty 

 of modern gardens. Fifty years ago owners of gardens were far 

 more enthusiastic in the matter of planting than they are now, 

 stimulated as they were by this Society, which at that time 

 could boast of the finest arboretum in the world, from which 

 was distributed, directly or indirectly, a large proportion of the 

 magnificent trees which are now the admiration of all from Land's 

 End to John o' Groats. But, unhappily for British horticulture, 

 the famous arboretum at Chiswick vanished, and from that 

 period it is not difficult to trace the decline of the public interest 

 in tree-planting. We ought to be grateful to those early tree- 

 planters, for have they not bequeathed to us our present enjoy- 

 ment of the magnificent trees that adorn old gardens, and which 

 time alone can produce ? 



The result of this neglect of flowering trees and shrubs which 

 now prevails is reflected in gardens, for it is apparent to all who 

 know anything of the subject that modern gardens are neither 

 so beautiful nor so interesting as old gardens. The commonplace 



