JANUARY. 



9 



THE PRINCE CONSORT. 



The Death of the Prince Consort is an event we cannot allow to pass away without 

 recording our sympathy for the deep affliction which has befallen our beloved Queen, 

 and our sense of the great loss which this his adopted country has sustained, through 

 his rmich-to-be-lamented decease, in mid-life and in the full tide of public usefulness and 

 philantrophy. To the profession of Horticulture the late Prince Consort was at once the 

 truest and most invaluable of patrons, and to him we as a body owe a lasting debt of 

 gratitude for the deep interest he took in all that belongs to the science and art of Gar- 

 dening. We need only refer to the Horticultivral Society, and compare the difficulties, 

 financial and otherwise, which surrounded it when he accepted the President's chair 

 with its present flourishing condition, to show how much the Society (and Horticulture 

 in general) are indebted to the warm interest he took in resuscitation and progression, 

 and the support which was afforded in consequence by Her Most Gracious Majesty and 

 her family. The example thus set by the late Prince cannot, we hope, fail to have due 

 weight with the Prince of Wales, and we sincerely hope he will enjoy the same amount 

 of pleasure and gratification in encouraging and promoting the arts and embellish- 

 ments of life which were so largely shared in by his august Father, whom Britain will 

 long moum and revere as the most esteemed and virtuous of Princes. 



IN-DOOR GARDENING. 



I am attempting some in-door gardening in one of the thickest and most crowded parts of 

 "London's rich and famous town." With Drury Lane on the east and St. Giles's on the 

 west, I am by no means in a spot adapted for vegetative development, None of the " spicy 

 breezes," the "fragrant odours," the "pleasing prospects," of the poets here; though there 

 is an abundance of "native perfumes," something more than whispering 

 " Whence they stole those balm y spoils." 



My greenhouse is my window-sill and a small yard — so small that four strides in one 

 direction will give you its length, and three in another its breadth— and this frowned upon 

 by houses and workshops four storeys high — a kind of burlesque on the " dark valley " scene 

 in the " Savourneen Deelish" at the Lyceum Theatre. My conservatory is my chamber window 

 with two light shelves, one at its base, the other at the division of the sashes ; my mantle- 

 piece, and a small table originally intended for the purposes of dressing, but pressed into the 

 service of horticultural operations. Atmospheric conditions, position, and locality are all 

 against me ; but in the face of difficulties things apparently hopeless, if not impossible, have 

 been attempted and accomplished; I attempt, and if failure comes I can but join issue 

 with Lady Macbeth, and say, " We fail." I am essaying nothing novel, nothing claiming 

 originality, but my process is full of interest for me, and is a source of no ordinary gratifi- 

 cation. My plan, too, is easy, it requires but little labour, and can be accomplished at a 

 moderate cost ; but whether the result will balance the outlay remains to be seen. I began 

 early in September. I procured some Saffron (autumn-flowering) Crocus. I merely stood 

 them on some soil that filled three-fourths of some flower-pots and covered the top with 

 moss. I employed shallow basins and dinner-plates for the same purpose, using moss only ; 

 but I got the best bloom where I had used the soil. They are out of bloom now, and thrown 

 away. The pots were on the window-sill, the others on my table. I kept them moderately 

 damp — just enough to encourage vigorous growth. The flowers of the Saffron Crocus do not 

 possess the points of quality professional florists somewhat too arbitrarily contend for, to the 

 entire discomfiture occasionally of uninitiated amateurs ; but they awakened the liveliest 

 interest in me, their shortcomings notwithstanding ; and the diurnal observation of their 

 shoots, gradually rising through the moss, and then developing their flowers, contrasted so 

 markedly, even on so small a scale, with the gloom, and dirt, and sterility out of doors, that 

 spring seemed to have parenthetically inserted itself between the decaying and death-like 

 stillness of autumn and Avinter. 



Their place is now occupied by another generation of tenants. I rise a step higr er in 

 my cultivable process. 1 now operate on bulbs of increased value. In two or three pots 

 I have placed a Polyanthus Narcissus, and surrounded it with Crocus of mixed colours. At 

 the time I write they are both starting rapidly into growth, and I have coveied the moss 

 with pots as before. The plates (soxq>plates are the best) have either three small Hyacinths 

 of three distinct colours in the centre, with Single Van Thol Tulips and Crocus intermingled, 

 or else have a central group of the same Tulip with an outer circle of Crocus. These are 



