154 
CURIOSITIES OF VEGETATION. 
his own flowers against somebody else's, he 
had to show against all that the somebody else 
collected of other persons, and the return of 
these to the floricultural ranks will be a 
reunion worth recording. The gentry are in 
fact turning florists ; some are resuming the 
fancy from a sheer love of flowers, and seize 
upon the new Society and its pledges as a sort 
of excuse. We regret that there are writers 
who persist in keeping up the book-system of 
culture for flowers, and recommend to amateurs 
plans of culture which will, if followed, prove 
very discouraging ; for instance, when a man 
who has not only totally failed for himself, but 
also failed, to the destruction of fine collec- 
tions, for other people, is employed in the 
ungracious work of leading others, "it is too 
bad." We can only earnestly recommend 
those who intend to cultivate flowers, to read 
the treatises that have been written by men 
known to succeed, and known to be original 
writers, and not copyists, or followers of 
book-lessons, and they will find that the sim- 
plest culture is the best ; that there is no 
mystery in gardening ; that some of our very 
best practical men were never brought up to 
the profession; and that the moment they read 
anything they cannot clearly understand, they 
should dismiss the book or paper in which 
they read it. They will find plenty of in- 
struction in the various treatises published in 
this work, to which we can refer with confi- 
dence, and they will want no further instruc- 
tion. Many new geraniums are upon the eve 
of coming out, and many others are out ; Mr. 
Foster, of Clewer, enters the field again in 
earnest, and his flowers are coming out 
through Mr. Bragg, of Slough, instead of Mr. 
Catleugh ; but we trust there will be a suc- 
cessful struggle against the prop system of 
showing ; we objected to it many years ago, 
but the leading Societies encouraged it, and 
we have counted one hundred and seventy 
props to one plant ; since then, that is to say 
within a year or two, other writers have begun 
to condemn it, as if a new light had broken 
in upon them, and they had all at once dis- 
covered how wrong it was to encourage that 
mode of showing, and were the first to dis- 
cover it. However, we are glad the subject 
is, after all our boring, becoming generally 
disapproved, and that something like a return 
to gardening, instead of mere mechanism, is 
likely to ensue. The judges at shows would 
soon cure the evil by giving prizes to those 
best grown without sticks, in preference to 
those with them. For our own part, we can- 
didly avow that if there were any present at 
a show where we were judge, that had been 
grown at all well, and were not contrary to 
the rules of the show in other respects, we 
would at once place them before others four 
times the size with sticks to hold the flowers 
in their places. There is a sort of stir among 
cottagers upon the subject of giving them 
prizes for flowers; many of the most intelli- 
gent members, seeing how much more profit- 
able it is for the cottager to grow carrots, 
potatoes, beet-root, parsnips, and other vege- 
tables that are really wholesome and nutritious 
food than it is to waste their time on the 
tending and dressing show pinks, and growing 
other flowers for show, have advocated the 
increase of prizes for the useful things, and 
taking them off for pinks, pansies, and 
bouquets. Staines fell into this last year, as 
well as some others ; Norwich continued to 
give prizes for the most trumpery flowers, 
and was literally parsimonious with prizes for 
all the useful vegetables. We are quite sure 
the more the clergy and gentry think of the 
fact, that a dozen pinks would cost anybody 
more time to attend to properly than a rod of 
carrots or potatoes, the more will they see the 
impropriety of wasting a shilling in the en- 
couragement of a waste of time. Messrs. 
Chandler have, as usual, had an extensive 
show of Camellia japonica, and including 
among them most of the new varieties ; the 
thousands, however, of healthy plants that 
have been imported and sold within a few 
weeks, have greatly militated against the 
interest of such exhibitions, and still more 
against the purchase of plants ; besides, 
there is hardly a nursery now that has not its 
collection of the Camellia japonica; and there 
is this difference in the short and extensive 
stocks, — the one comprises none but the best, 
which are all that excite curiosity, — the other 
contains everything, good, bad, and indifferent, 
and you have almost to ask for the best be- 
fore you can see them. It is like going over a 
bed of tulips containing two or three thou- 
sand of all the common ones in cultivation, 
with a few good ones sprinkled among them, 
and then examining a choice selection of 
three hundred, every one of which is a gem 
in its way. 
CURIOSITIES OF VEGETATION. 
THE BOTTLE-TREE OF AUSTRALIA. 
On rocky eminences in the interior of 
Tropical Australia, this tree, remarkable in 
locality, form, and quality, was met with by 
Sir T. L. Mitchell, in his surveying expedi- 
tions in search of a route from Sydney to the 
Gulf of Carpentaria. In most instances it 
was found to be almost solitary, in which 
detached condition it is mentioned, in the 
journal * of that explorer, as- occurring on 
* Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of 
Tropical Australia. By Lieut.-Colonel Sir T. L. 
Mitchell, Kt. D.C.L. London : Longmans. 
