OLD PLANTS VERSUS NEW PLANTS. 
461 
is to say, three guineas for a sprig of three 
inches. Of course we grew it with great 
industry, and all the skill we were master of, 
until it flowered, and found it not so good a 
plant as C. viridiflora. We remember, too, 
a new GreviJlea rdbusta : we believe that 
was to be all we could desire in that tribe. 
It was in one respect more than we desired ; 
it grew ten feet high without the shadow of a 
bloom ; and, as it was too big for our house, 
we gave it to somebody who had more room, 
but we saw it very much increased in size 
without any more prospect of a bloom, and 
have heard no more of it. The last we heard 
was a hint that the then owner had an idea of 
making a fishing-rod of it. But these are 
only two instances of a thousand. How many 
more we could find equally disappointing is 
only worth considering if we were going to 
form a volume. 
We should like some of our novelty hunters 
to endeavour to improve old plants, instead 
of looking so assiduously for new ones that 
" they know not of." There is a field open 
for them among a very pretty tribe of plants 
— the old-fashioned geraniums ; those with 
scented leaves. The oak leaf is one of pecu- 
liarly handsome habit, beautiful scent, and very 
mean flower : produce a good flower on this, 
and there would be something to boast of. 
Others of this family, which seem to keep 
aloof altogether from the beautiful varieties of 
the scentless ones in popular esteem, would 
bear improvement ; and improvement can be 
made very easily. Let but the florist take up 
the subject, and it is done. The flower may 
not be produced as good as those we allude to, 
but the petals may be widened ; in a." few sea- 
sons the flower may be greatly advanced in 
quality, and there is something old-fashioned 
and social in saluting one of the scented plants 
by a gentle rub of the thumb and finger on 
the leaf, which imparts the aroma as if grateful 
for the salutation. 
Writing, however, of old-fashioned plants 
being neglected for inferior new ones, we can 
hardly help noticing at public exhibitions the 
grumbling of those who fancy that costly 
plants are to win, instead of beauty and skill. 
It is not long since we saw an instance of this 
at the Surrey Gardens. A gardener was 
roundly abusing the judges for partiality, and 
endeavoured to justify his censure by reckon- 
ing up the cost of his plants, and their value 
as specimens, against that of a collection that 
was placed before him ; and it served to show 
what mistaken ideas are entertained by the 
gardeners of good buyers who obtain all the 
novelties, and of those old-fashioned people 
who buy nothing, but make the gardener keep 
up the place with old plants, and what he can 
beg, borrow, or pick up. The fact is, 
that judges have no business to know the cost 
of any thing. Shows are not to try money 
against money, but skill against skill. Novel- 
ties, however, may be desirable in all families, 
and if they are not inferior to the old ones, 
they may take their place by the side of, but 
not supersede, the established florist. Which 
of the Epacris family beats grandiflora ? E. 
miniata, a bright scarlet, is, by the side of its 
crimson brother, a very beautiful object, and 
worthy of its place ; but all the other members 
of the family are, in point of habit, real grace- 
fulness, and style, inferior. Nevertheless, 
they are all beautiful. Which of all the 
hybrid Cacti beats Cactus speciosisshmis and 
speciosus ? What plant is there that comes up 
to the old Crassula, now of course honoured 
with some new name ? But people may order 
it without knowing that old neglected plants 
in abundance were to be met with. By the 
way, Mr. Ayres had a beautiful plant in his 
collection, admirably grown, and well stopped 
while young, and, therefore, produced in a 
perfect little bush. To those who had never 
grown this plant as it ought to be grown, it 
appeared a perfect novelty ; and there were 
very sagacious people who took down its new 
name, without dreaming that it was the same 
plant they had seen growing in tall gawky 
shoots, with a bunch of flowers on the tops. 
There is nothing shows the skill of a gardener 
more than the proper management of an old 
neglected plant ; and perhaps we could hardly 
do better than give a few hints on the subject. 
It is quite frightful to go into some old esta- 
blishments, and see the long-legged, bare, and 
ugly specimens of really good plants, which 
have been allowed year after year to go 
just as they liked, without so much as the 
timely application of the knife, or the luxury 
of an enlarged pot to grow in. 
Many of these subjects, like the Crassula 
we have mentioned, would hardly be known if 
produced as they might be grown under good 
management. Can any thing be much more 
showy than a finely grown dwarf bushy 
Oleander ? Yet we find them in old establish- 
ments six feet high, bare three-fourths of the 
way up, and a head just above the people's, 
with their flowers out of reach, and almost out 
of sight ; whereas there is nothing to prevent 
their being produced as bushy as a geranium 
under three feet high, with bloom at the end of 
every shoot : we can hardly fancy a more 
showy object in a collection of plants. 
The Gardenia radicans is another fine old 
plant, but its scent has procured for it a mar- 
ket reputation, and very handsome little spe- 
cimens are to be had for a few shillings ; 
but there is not a plant in cultivation more 
worthy of a place in any collection, nor that 
would more readily yield to the gardener's 
