HORTICULTURE IN NEW ZEALAND. 



159 



would refer any friends who need a fuller description to the " Handbook 

 of the New Zealand Flora " and to that beautiful illustrated work by 

 Mr. and Mrs. E. H. Featon, entitled " The Art Album of New Zealand 

 Flora," published by Messrs. Triibner & Co , Charing Cross Road, to 

 which work I am personally indebted for some of the details concerning 

 plant life in the colony. It is regrettable that this work was not carried 

 beyond the first volume. I think that the New Zealand Government 

 might well be asked to assist in having such a beautiful and useful 

 work brought to completion. 



I am grateful to the Council of the Royal Horticultural Society for 

 the opportunity given me to bring under your notice some of the charac- 

 teristics of horticulture in my adopted land. As I have said before, the 

 study of flowers excites the keenest interest, and I would make a sug- 

 gestion to the Council, viz. that in the contemplated new garden plants 

 belonging to each British colony should, as far as possible, be grown 

 in separate sections, and so give a representative Empire-like character- 

 to the exhibits. As the tendency in these days is to draw the Colonies 

 to the Motherland in a political sense, so in other ways than politics a 

 community of interests on various subjects might be found beneficial to 

 Englishmen and Colonials alike. An opportunity would thus be given, 

 by exchanges and otherwise, to study the plant life of the various countries, 

 and a cosmopolitan character would be added to the new institution. 



I should like to add that a movement is on foot in New Zealand 

 towards federating the different horticultural societies into a national 

 society which would have charge of a colonial garden, which " would be 

 a standing advertisement of the colony's botanical resources, climate, 

 and the enterprise of its settlers." So writes Mr. 13. S. Thompson, of 

 Normanby, in a paper read at a Conference of New Zealand Horticulturists 

 held at Dunedin, and the following is a general outline of what he 

 proposed. 



In making a colonial State garden, whilst exotic trees and shrubs need 

 not be discarded, a section of the ground should be reserved for the 

 growth of indigenous trees, shrubs, and flowering plants alone, which 

 would give the visitor a comprehensive view of the types of New Zealand 

 flora, which, whilst each is beautiful in itself, form as a whole forest 

 verdure unsurpassed on earth. But it would need the practical horti- 

 culturist to imbue the trees with qualities suitable to their surroundings, 

 and to make those surroundings fitting for the trees, for New Zealand 

 trees have in their natural habitat been so dependent on one another for 

 mutual shelter that they will not stand uncared-for isolation. The 

 beauty of New Zealand trees is little known outside New Zealand, too 

 little known to the great majority within. It would be the work of a 

 colonial society to introduce to notice the beauty and utility of a flora 

 which it is the world's loss that it knows so little of. Many of the trees 

 now growing in the New Zealand bush would make splendid specimen 

 trees to beautify the parks of the Old Land ; and the fire of the settler 

 is always busy, the axe and saw of the lumberer seldom idle. Our birds 

 are, some of them, lost ; many are disappearing year by year, and the 

 leafy homes which shelter them will perish if care is not exercised. It is 

 undoubtedly true that many New Zealand trees will only be found in the 



