GENERAL REVIEW OF THE STATE OF FLORICULTURE. 
563 
scarcely be concealed that very many first- 
rate gardeners, who had never condescended 
to pay attention to such matters, really did 
not understand the peculiar management 
required by many of the greatest favourites. 
But it must be admitted at the same time, 
that an acre of open ground without its crops 
would not be so difficult to manage well as a 
few picotees, pinks, carnations, and auriculas, 
that might be all crammed in a three-light 
box. There are, however, some changes in 
the stock of an amateur florist which have 
been made within a few> — comparatively few 
years. The florists have claimed many sub- 
jects which had been for centuries almost 
treated as common plants, and have, by rais- 
ing new varieties, and adopting fixed prin- 
ciples, rendered a veiy common plant a very 
noble flower, and so increased the number, 
and added to the quality, as to render it 
worthy of the highest station. The old 
florists' flowers were the auricula, polyanthus, 
tulip, hyacinth, ranunculus, carnation, pi- 
cotee, pink, anemone, and these ended the 
list. Even as late as Maddocks' time, we 
believe his Directory, the best work on flori- 
culture up to that period, mentioned no more. 
Within our time we have added the crocus, 
the cineraria, the pansy, the dahlia, pelar- 
gonium or geranium, the verbena, the chrys- 
anthemum, the rose, the calceolaria, the 
fuchsia, the petunia, the iris, the phlox, and 
the lupin. In the time of Maddocks the 
properties which constituted perfection in the 
flowers he treated of were but carelessly 
given ; the best we then had were described 
as models of perfection ; he seemed to form 
no idea of surpassing them, nor were there 
any fixed principles of excellence. If a 
cocked hat was the perfection of dress, we 
were always to look at cocked hats for our 
models. But while florists added to the num- 
ber of families destined to be improved in 
form and number of varieties, they adopted 
another kind of models for their standards of 
perfection ; not forms already known and 
arrived at, but forms ideal, that could only be 
approached, not reached — the winning-post 
was too far off to be arrived at in the race, 
but he that got nearest was the best. The 
publication of the "Properties of Flowers," 
though too novel and too startling to please 
all those who had been working to old pat- 
terns, became popular among young and 
enthusiastic florists, who saw what they had 
to arrive at, if they hoped to attain perfection, 
and who were enabled to judge which among 
the flowers we already possessed were the 
nearest to the model laid down. Florists, 
like manufacturers, can almost work to pat- 
tern. If they raise a hundred seedling flowei-s 
they are not like the parents, although many 
approach to them ; as there was a variation, 
those which were better than the parents were 
saved, while those which were worse were 
thrown away; and it wants no gnat stretch 
of imagination to convince us that this is the 
road to improvement. Before the properties 
of flowers were understood and published, 
that is to say, before they were laid down on 
fixed principles, everything that was new and 
striking was added to the list of flowers for 
sale, and the catalogues abounded with sub- 
jects totally unworthy of a place among the 
choice collections of the British florist. In 
the old florists' flowers there was a struggle 
among the dealers to maintain the old ay 
because the florist had an old stock to get rid 
of; but among the new florists' flowers there 
had been no antiquated notions to defend, and 
the triumph of fixed principles was much 
sooner established. It seemed to many that 
to make a circle the model of perfection for 
flowers that were naturally a five-petalled 
windmill, like the verbena, the phlox, the 
pansy, the geranium, or a star like the ci- 
neraria, seemed to many people perfectly 
ridiculous. They never considered that such 
a desideratum would be accomplished by the 
simple widening of the petals, without en- 
larging the diameter ; but there has been 
enough done to show that there was nothing 
monstrous in the proposition, and there is- a 
universal concession to the "Properties of 
Flowers," and in no case do the very best 
censors fail to judge flowers by the standard 
laid down. It is not our intention to discuss 
the merits of these properties, but to notice 
the great advances made towards perfection, 
and the encouragement it gives to young 
florists as well as to old-established ones, to 
persevere in the raising of new varieties, 
beginning, however, to save their seeds from 
none but the best of those we have already, 
that they may fairly hope for a still further 
advance. But florists have something to da 
besides raising seedlings ; they must endeavour- 
to pull all one way instead of dividing and 
subdividing into cliques. Dealers especially 
should be careful not to be too prominent in any-- 
thing that savours of self-interest, but always 
to look ahead when they can do anything 
towards the encouragement of the great body 
of cultivators. It does not look well to see 
an individual who is making money of the 
floral world, too prominent with his pen in 
lauding his own productions, and sneering at, 
or altogether omitting the notice of better 
things in the hands of other people, and the 
trade in general ought to resist the dictation 
even at a loss, rather than fall into the snare 
laid for them. A man has only to persuade 
the public that he has influence, to frighten 
all the dealers into his train, each being afraid 
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