332 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
progress has been the mcreased-and still increasing interest taken in home 
gardens. I mean especially in the small gardens, the tiny patches of 
soil one sees round the cottage doors in our crowded districts, as well as 
in the more elaborate and extensive villa gardens of our merchant princes 
and business men. 
Home gardening is a most estimable hobby for the British working 
man to cultivate. What a first-rate innovation allotment gardens have 
been in the suburbs of our large cities and towns to the workers ! They 
give recreation to the tired artisan, as well as a return in home-grown 
vegetables and fruit, which if no cheaper as regards actual cost are far 
more valued and valuable, in that the owner can tell his comrades that I 
grew these ; and that little pronoun I represents an honest and honourable 
pride, and not improbably tells of many a shilling saved from the ale- 
house. Our city of Norwich does not perhaps feel the need of allotments so 
keenly as most other cities, being deservedly called " The City of Gardens," 
a most envious position to occupy ; but in the manufacturing and colliery 
districts of the North and the Midlands, where the light of the sun is 
practically excluded all day, these are the places where the real need 
and consequent appreciation of allotments and their attendant pleasures 
are noticeable, compelling as they do the careful attention of their pos- 
sessors, and giving healthy and restful occupation, after laborious 
bodily toil, both to mind and to body. 
Another point of progress I must note, and that is the return of the 
wandering lovers in horticulture to their first love, in the old-fashioned 
naturally-grown English perennials, now again so deservedly popular, 
after neariy a century's neglect ; a revival which has been greatly assisted 
by the bringing to bear of the skill of the hybridist, as well as by the 
introduction of a host of new plants. The herbaceous class of hardy 
flowers appeals to all — so easily grown, so permanent, and so beautiful, 
giving us from earliest spring till- the late autumn a continual succession 
of charming flowers, and almost all of them useful for cutting for house 
decoration. Garden lovers owe a deeper debt of gratitude than probably 
they are at all aware of to Mr. Wm. Robinson, who by his writings in the 
Garden (of which he was the founder, and for many years the editor), 
and by his untiring efforts in every direction, has been mainly successful 
in bringing back English gardeners to the love of an English garden, and 
in weaning them from the French "carpet " system, which threatened at 
one time to exterminate all hardy plants. 
How marked has been the progress at the hand of the scientist and 
hybridist ! What energy and care has been devoted to the Begonia, the 
Rose, the Sweet Pea, and numberless others ! How many of those who 
enjoy the new flowers ever think of the hybridist's many disappointments 
and much labour lost before he meets with success ? And how often his 
only reward is the satisfaction of knowmg that by his labours he has 
produced something which has given infinite pleasure to thousands. 
And with this reward he is not only often obliged to be, but generally is, 
really content ; for, for anyone to get his full measure of enjoyment from 
the gardening art, he must be filled with the desire to give pleasure to 
others and lend a helping hand to everybody he can. 
In speaking of the advancement in the floral departments of our craft 
