PROPERTIES OF FLOWERS. 
2C5 
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If it were necessary to prove the advantages 
of a fixed standard for floral subjects we need 
only instance the fact "that no real or decided 
improvements were effected in the science of 
floriculture until a correct standard of perfec- 
tion was determined upon, and the properties 
necessary to constitute that perfection defined 
upon principles that could be easily understood 
and reduced to practice." The mere fact of 
raising a superior flower cannot be said to 
benefit the science, except the system by which 
the improvement was effected can be so 
defined as to enable others to follow up the 
benefits thus obtained and therefore, although 
a few good flowers may have been raised, and 
a few vaguely constructed rules promulgated 
for the guidance of florists, still practical 
floriculture cannot be said to have made any 
material progress until 1832, when the pro- 
duction of Mr. Glenny's papers on the proper- 
ties of flowers and plants commenced a new 
era in the science, and laid the foundation for 
the most important improvements that have 
ever been effected. 
The extraordinary advances made since 
that period, and the equally extraordinary 
fact that every improvement has been an 
approach towards the properties laid down by 
Mr. Glenny, is perhaps the strongest evidence 
that can by possibility be given of the soundness 
of this author's views, and the perfect princi- 
ples upon which his system of floriculture (for 
so it must be called) has been founded. 
Every one who takes the- most cursory 
view of flowers, must have observed the ex- 
treme beauty of the Rose, the Dahlia, the 
Carnation, the Pansy, the Cineraria, the 
Calceolaria, the Geranium, the Picotce, the 
Rhododendron, the Verbena, the Petunia, &c. 
as compared with the same flowers of our 
younger days. Not every one, however, is 
aware that these are the very flowers that 
have approached nearer than any other to 
Mr. Glenny's standards, and that in the same 
ratio as each flower has approached that 
standard, so has it come into notice, teen 
admired and cultivated. 
The principal feature in Mr. Glenny's 
system of floriculture, and the one in which 
he differs from all others, is simply this, "that 
he adopts as a fixed standard for the perfec- 
tion of each flower a model of beauty that it 
is scarcely possible to attain, but that if ob- 
tained cannot be surpassed." His instructions 
for approaching the required standards are 
equally plain, and as easily understood ; viz. 
to continue a succession of seed sowing and 
saving ; always destroying every plant that 
does not indicate some improvement, and 
saving seed only from those which approach 
the nearest to the required properties. 
It may justly be observed, that to devise a 
model that cannot be attained is no very 
difficult matter, but to originate and define a 
series of models every approach to which will 
actually increase the beauty of the subject, and 
which, if ever attained, are literally so beau- 
tiful as not to be surpassed, requires abilities of 
no ordinary kind; and hence it is that all who 
have hitherto attempted have most signally 
failed, with the single exception of Mr. 
Glenny, who in 1832 originated the system, 
and founded thereon a series of standards for 
the perfection of, and a code of laws for the 
judgment of, flowers and plants, which have 
superseded all others, and which now form the 
basis upon which the awards of all floricultural 
societies are made throughout the kingdom. 
In allusion to these standards Dr. Lindley 
observes (in a paper on Pine growing) "JPine 
(/rowers should imitate the florists; they 
should place their standard of perfection very 
high, and should strive to approach it as 
nearly as they can without being discouraged 
if they do not reach it" — thus acknowledging 
that the system which florists have been the 
first to adopt is of all others the best adapted 
for the development of horticultural skill, and, 
in fact, the only one calculated to improve to its 
fullest extent every branch of practical horticul- 
