94 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



say on this subject, I wrote to a friend asking for suggestions, 

 and he said that competition in flower-growing was so keen 

 nowadays, that all practical knowledge gained by experience 

 must be reserved to earn one's own living. My advice to the 

 general public who do not want their flowers on roots is, buy 

 more liberally, and if a few join together to buy wholesale in 

 Covent Garden Market, they will help the growers to get a better 

 price. 



I pass on to the choice of sorts, and I would remind you here 

 that you do not want to pick out the flowers you like best at a 

 show, or to order them out of a catalogue with your Tulips and 

 Hyacinths, and then grumble at your gardener if they are not 

 everything you expected. Many of the old and cheapest varieties 

 are among the most beautiful and useful ; some of the new and 

 very expensive varieties are quite hardy, and worth all they cost 

 to an appreciative purchaser. But think of soil and situation 

 and gardener before you purchase. Plant the cheaper sorts of 

 the different classes to find out if the situation is suitable, and 

 then acquire the rarer varieties of those which grow the best. 

 If possible find a nurseryman with a soil similar to your own, and 

 see the plants in flower there before you order them, and even 

 then do not pass your judgment on what you see unless they 

 have been grown for more than one year on that particular 

 ground. Soil has much to do with the variation of colour, and 

 sand, especially if there is any iron in it, alters the colour of the 

 cups, especially in the incomparabilis and Leedsi sections. For 

 early use the spurius are the best of the Trumpet varieties, 

 together with Queen Bess of the incomparabilis type. Then 

 follow Emperor and Empress with thirty or forty varieties, 

 between which there is little to choose in point of earliness and 

 which suit some one soil and some another. The early poeticus 

 and their progeny come in at the same time, and the whippers-in 

 are the late poeticus and gracilis. I am not going to crack up 

 any new varieties or to advise you to get any particular variety 

 by name. Some bulb-grower or retailer would be down on me 

 with the accusation of making someone else the most favoured 

 nation, or perhaps accusing me of undue preference on account 

 of some unknown bribe. I have often wished that in collections 

 of hardy flowers — especially of Daffodils — shown here, the posi- 

 tion where grown, N. or S. of London, E. or W. of Greenwich, 



