88 
PROPERTIES OF FLOWERS. THE HYACINTH. 
sequent attempts to supersede him have failed. 
We neither wish to assume originality, nor 
desire to do injustice. Such, however, has 
been the reception of the laws laid down in the 
papers on the properties of those flowers more 
immediately claimed by florists, that we have 
no course left us, but that of adopting them as 
our guide in estimating the qualities of new 
flowers. We feel the necessity of upholding 
a standard of some kind, and an ideal one is 
the best, because it is beyond our reach, and 
therefore is the less likely to be surpassed or 
superseded. It has not been so with the older 
florists ; they have given a standard too easily 
to be obtained, and consequently flowers have 
been brought to equal, and even surpass the 
model ; and then a new standard has been re- 
quired. The papers first printed and published 
for the Metropolitan Society of Florists raised 
an ideal standard, which we can scarcely hope 
to reach ; but as the nearer a flower is brought 
to it the better, and as there is no hope of 
surpassing it, we cannot dispute the propriety 
of making such model the general standard. 
Tli is subject has been somewhat prematurely 
forced upon us by the remarks of the Gar- 
deners' Gazette, in which it is asserted that 
Dr. Lindley has pirated from the Gardener 
and Practical Florist the engraving which 
appeared in the Chronicle illustrative of the 
Properties of the Hyacinth. 
Now, although we eschew the path of con- 
troversy altogether, we nevertheles feel bound 
to correct a statement so manifestly untrue; 
and, therefore, without intending offence to 
any party, we would remark that the first 
engraving illustrative of the Properties of the 
Hyacinth was published in the Gardeners' 
Chronicle for May 1841, while those in the 
Gardener and Practical Florist did not appear 
until April 1843. And as evidence that 
neither the one nor the other was a piracy, we 
subjoin afac simile of each as they appeared 
in the respective works. 
PROPERTIES OF THE HYACINTH, 
As defined in the Gardener and Practical Florist. 
" Some of these are already appreciated a 
little, but none sufficiently distinct. There 
are a few of the present varieties which have 
long spikes of flowers, and those very com- 
pact — both of which are desirable — but they 
for the most part have very ill-shaped pips.. 
There are others which have very prettily 
formed pips, of a great size, but they are far 
apart on the spike, and some hang awkwardly; 
and those who exhibit the flower, know but 
