460 
OLD PLANTS VERSUS NEW PLANTS. 
shame expunge the sentence that condemns 
her predecessor, whose Calendar will be read 
when modern imitators will only be recog- 
nised among waste paper as the linings of 
trunks, or in fragments as tails for boys' kites. 
There is a novelty, however, for which we 
must give credit to Mrs. Loudon, although 
supplied to her by Mr. Ogle, a professional 
gardener. It is a list of things not to be clone 
in the months, as well as the things to be clone. 
They are, as may be supposed, very learned, 
and highly flattering to that portion of the 
public who read Mrs. Loudon's Calendar. It 
is as if the good lady had anticipated that the 
readers of her " things not to be done," were 
sure to be very stupid people. Let us give a 
few of her very important cautions. 
" Never build, if you canhelp it, in January." 
"We should like to know whether anybody 
ever did build from choice, with the almost 
certainty of a frost. 
" Never water plants during the season 
when they require to be in a state of repose." 
All the Calendars are content to direct that 
we are to keep things dry, as the means of 
making a plant rest. The novelty which Mrs. 
Loudon claims the merit of is, that her Calen- 
dar, instead of saying, "You are to keep it dry," 
says, " You are not to water it :" this is clever 
and original. Other Calendars tell us we are 
to fumigate plants, and afterwards syringe 
with clear water. Mrs. Loudon says, " Never 
syringe the plants before fumigating them." 
There are two classes of cautions, the one 
merely changing the lessons of other Calen- 
dars to negatives as palpable as those we have 
chosen, and others which are almost insulting, 
even to a booby fresh caught from the moun- 
tains, cautions as absurd as if she had said — 
Never hold your hand on the fire long to- 
gether. 
Never walk into a horsepond in frosty 
weather. 
Never tie a horse's tail to his manger to eat 
his corn. 
Never lie all night out in the snow. 
These are not more palpable absurdities 
than some of the things, which, as Mrs. Loudon 
says, " require especial notice not to be done," 
while others, as we have before observed, are 
mere changes rung upon words ; they are vile 
plagiarisms from the very Calendars she affects 
to despise. Here and there, it is true, we 
discover a novelty, and it is, as a matter of 
course, an absurdity. 
" Never water shrubs during the hot dry 
weather, without at the same time slightly 
loosening the surface of the soil, and after 
watering mulching with some half-rotten ma- 
nure, or the short grass from the lawn." 
This is perfectly original, perfectly mis- 
chievous, perfectly ridiculous. It is frequently 
necessary, after the blooming season and when 
Anemones are making their growth, to water 
them freely, and if this is one of the " things 
requiring especial notice as never to be done in 
July," without loosening the earth and mulch- 
ing, why we can only say that many plants 
must go without what they want because they 
cannot get what they do not want. If Mrs. 
Loudon had produced this Calendar without 
reflecting on those so much superior, all had 
been well, and we should have merely noticed 
it as the hundredth opportunity of using up 
the wood-cuts which have done so much 
service, and let it find its own way ; but to set 
out with an outrageous attack upon standard 
works, from which one half our gardeners 
learned the rudiments of the profession, was 
calculated to draw attention to the marked in- 
feriority of the compilation. 
OLD PLANTS VERSUS NEW PLANTS. 
It is so much the rage to obtain new plants 
and neglect old ones, that we can hardly resist 
the temptation to enter the field on behalf of 
some especial plants, and deal a sly blow at 
certain rivals which have really no claim to 
a preference, but the solitary and valueless 
point — novelty. This, however, does not ap- 
ply so much to subjects raised in England, as 
to species newly imported. If we raise plants 
here, and put them forth as seedling varieties, 
they must have some property better than 
their contemporaries, or the public gets dis- 
satisfied. The rules by which even a novice, 
independent of his natural taste, may become 
acquainted with what constitutes the merit of 
a plant, are so simple, and withal (what with 
the circulation of the work in its original 
state, and the meanness of hireling copyists, 
who, for a guinea or two a-week, turn petty 
thieves of other men's ideas) so public, that it 
would be little use for a dealer to show or sell 
an inferior thing, unless he had made up his 
mind to be detected. The time for persuading 
people that a bad thing is good, has gone by. 
The fraud would only last till the plant 
bloomed, when a glance at Glenny's "Pro- 
perties of Flowers" would tell even a tyro 
that he had been deceived, even if he had not 
sufficient natural judgment to detect the im- 
position without such assistance. What we 
chiefly allude to is the importation of novel- 
ties with high sounding names and great 
character, and their distribution among no- 
velty hunters before their real merit is known. 
This, however, is not all, for there are some 
who are totally blind to all defects, if there be 
but novelty, and who take enormous pains to 
grow and show inferior things, and neglect 
good old plants. W r e remember to have 
given a guinea an inch for Correct nifa, that 
