546 
THE PROGRESS OF FLORICULTURE. 
ticular plants. He should be engaged, and 
paid, and known to every exhibitor from the 
first ; he then has a reputation to sustain, 
which is a sort of security against any improper 
decisions. The reverse of all this has been 
fatal to the interests of floriculture. In some 
cases, judges are not thought of until the pro- 
ductions are all ready for their decision. They 
are then hastily appointed by the exhibitors 
from persons on the spot, people who are 
known growers or otherwise as the case may 
be, but perhaps unacquainted with half the 
subjects on show. These gentlemen are very 
frequently there on purpose to be chosen, and 
some shower ready to propose them ; and 
they have no standing in the Society as 
judges, no credit to uphold in a decision, that 
is given, and done with, and forgotten, with all 
its faults, except by the parties who are 
wronged. This is the case with a great majo- 
rity of shows, and those at which there are 
•paid judges are not so well managed as they 
raiglit be. It is an enormous evil to employ 
dealers ; the temptations are greater than 
many people can bear. A dealer sees some- 
thing that he fancies, and buys. His first 
step is to get the owner to show it where he is 
judge. Whether it be really good or not, he 
does not give up its claim to a prize without a 
hard fight, and it is a very common occur- 
rence for the very man that has given a prize 
to be the owner of the plant so distinguished. 
The past year has been prolific of prizes, with- 
out having been productive of a corresponding 
number of good flowers, and all arising out of 
the carelessness of the arrangements forjudges. 
The third cause of a sort of retrograde move- 
ment in the progress of floriculture, we have 
said arises from the desire of dealers to send 
out a certain number of flowers every year, 
and they rather make up the number with 
bad than not send out their quantity. Let us 
go to the Dahlia trade as an example, although 
the dealers in Pansies, Fuchsias, Yerbenas, 
and other flowers, would do just as well. On 
looking to the advertisements of a number 
every year, we find from two to ten, according 
to a man's connexion, always advertized ; some 
years they have one or two good ones among 
them, sometimes none, but they are always 
"first-rate." This year more than one hun- 
dred are "warranted show flowers," "war- 
ranted first-rate," and others strongly recom- 
mended, and as elaborately described. For 
many years past, every season has produced its 
hundred or two of half-guinea varieties, and 
yet, with all the advantage of a quarter of a 
century's established favourites, it would be, 
difficult to find a dozen flowers as good as 
Princess Eadziwill, or the Standard of Perfec- 
tion. When any one splendid flower came to 
the share of a grower who was aware of its 
importance, he was enabled to get four or five 
hundred pounds for the produce, and any 
advance or distinguished novelty, well authen- 
ticated, would bring the money now ; but there 
is not a grower who has not warranted things 
over and over again to be first-rate, when 
they have disappointed the buyer, and the 
public have ceased to believe one word they 
read in the catalogues of dealers, or the papers 
of the day, simply because the papers of the 
day, being dependent on the advertisements of 
the dealers, are but the echo of their words. 
Not that the proprietors of newspapers care 
one way or the other, but that the persons em- 
ployed to go among the dealers are influenced 
by the people they associate with, and have 
not the firmness or the judgment to act on 
their own opinion. But, wdthout meaning any 
disrespect to the gentlemen of the press, we 
should like to know if there be a single in- 
stance of a paper or periodical connected with 
floriculture, that is to say, florist's flowers, 
that is not, more or less, actually conducted by 
or influenced by dealers. The Midland Flo- 
rist by Mr. Wood, florist, of Nottingham ; the 
Gardeners^ Joiiriial by Mr, Dickson, florist, of 
Clapham ; the Cabinet by Mr. Harrison, nurse- 
ryman, of Downham ; the Florist by Mr. 
Beck, florist, of Isleworth ; the Gardener by 
Mr, Neville, florist, of Peckham ; and this 
runs the gauntlet of the floral publications, 
except the Gardeners' Chronicle and ourselves, 
and we need not say that we are independent 
of dealers. We have never been indebted to 
a florist for an opinion on flowers ; we have 
always used our own judgment, or resorted to 
that of Mr. Glenny. We know our own opi- 
nion has never been influenced, and we believe 
Mr. Glenny's has not been. He has never 
exhibited much sign of dependence, or even a 
wish to oblige. We wish he were sometimes 
a little more considerate than he appears to 
be, for even an honest opinion may be given 
without being offensive. While upon this 
subject, we may as well observe that Mr. 
Glenny is engaged to supply us next year 
with a monthly summary of all that goes on in 
the floral world, — his opinion of all the liew 
flowers worth notice ; and this paper must 
stand upon its own merits ; we shall be per- 
fectly uninfluenced even by him. He has 
been long enough before the gardening world 
to stand or fall by his own opinions, and as 
the author of the Properties of Flowers, we 
presume he is as good a judge as we can 
engage, to let our readers know from time to 
time the names and descriptions of the best 
new subiects. 
