SPRING-FLOWERING TREES AND SHRUBS. 



411 



aspect of more recently made gardens is in a great measure 

 accounted for by their owners' lack of interest, and by the want 

 of knowledge on the part of their gardeners, to whom numbers of 

 the beautiful old flowering trees and shrubs you see around you 

 here to-day are practically unknown. Moreover, the prevalent 

 practice of employing nurserymen to lay out and plant gardens 

 too often results in an insipid garden, as the temptation to plant 

 the most easily propagated and quickly grown things is too great, 

 and so, as a rule, only the ordinary varieties of flowering shrubs 

 are planted instead of the newer and better sorts. 



As the demand for any class of plants obviously regulates the 

 supply, the consequence of the neglect I complain of is that it 

 does not pay nurserymen to keep a stock of the rarer trees and 

 shrubs that are seldom asked for, so that it is a difficult matter 

 now to get young plants of rare trees early introduced. Some 

 of our chief nurserymen have, however, been active in intro- 

 ducing new exotic trees and shrubs, and Continental nurserymen 

 are continually adding to their lists new and improved varieties 

 obtained by the hybridist's and raiser's skill. We get nowadays 

 improved or florists' varieties of such things as the Lilac, Cydonia, 

 Weigela, Hibiscus, and Mock Orange, just as in former days they 

 commenced to raise varieties of Rhododendron and Azalea ; and if 

 only greater attention were paid to the subject in this country, and 

 more encouragement given to nurserymen to produce novelties, 

 I am sure that as rapid strides would be made in the improve- 

 ment of flowering shrubs as has been the case during recent years 

 with hardy herbaceous plants. Since the days of Loudon — 

 than whom no one has done more to advance the knowledge of 

 exotic trees-- there has been an enormous addition made to the 

 material which he wrote upon. From the far east we have 

 obtained those beautiful Chinese and Japanese kinds that we see 

 before us, while from California in the extreme west, and from 

 Chili and New Zealand in the south, w r e have also received 

 numbers of trees and shrubs that were quite unknown to Loudon. 

 Our Royal Horticultural Society, through Robert Fortune, has 

 been instrumental in adding to this treasure, while the names of 

 Standish and Veitch in connection with Chinese, Japanese, and 

 North and South American plants will be known as long as 

 gardening lasts. Our national garden at Kew has always done 

 much to enrich the country at large, -while we owe not a little to 



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