December. 1920 
American Gladiolus Society. 
The next annual meeting of the 
American Gladiolus Society will be 
held in St. Thomas, Ontario, Canada, 
some time in August, 1921. The date 
will be announced later. Inasmuch as 
some of our members may wish to at- 
tend the meeting of the Society of 
American Florists in Washington, D. C., 
it is probable that the meeting will be 
held during the second week in August. 
The Secretary would welcome sugges- 
tions regarding suitable dates, as well 
as preferable days in the week for the 
exhibition. 
Having settled the place of meeting 
for next year the Secretary would urge 
that contributions for the prize list be 
sent in at once, so that the new Secre- 
tary may get out the prize list early 
next year. A. C. Beal, Secretary. 
Our good friend, H. J. Bartholmey, of Chicago, 111., 
one of the active vice-presidents of the Northwestern 
Peony and Iris Society. The two spikes of Gladioli 
are the variety Mrs. Dr. Notion, and Mr. Bartholmey 
writes that they were over six feet in height. While 
Norton is a tall growing variety the results secured 
by Mr. Bartholmey are certainly remarkable. 
— 
Shakespeare and the Garden. 
“ Shakespeare, with whose plants and flow- 
ers I am about to deal, is pre-eminently the 
poet of nature, and every man who would get 
full value out of his trees and flowers should 
try and cultivate a poetical spirit. In the 
little articles I propose to write on the flow- 
I ers and plants of which he makes mention, 
I shall constantly regard him accordingly as 
the gardener’s friend. On going through his 
plays, I find that of our English wild flowers, 
Shakespeare mentions about fifteen, alluding 
to some only once or twice, to others a dozen 
times. Of exotic flowers, or such as were 
cultivated in the scanty gardens of his period 
more than three hundred years ago, he men- 
tions nine or ten. Of trees and shrubs, ex- 
otics included, there are notices of about 
twenty-five. Of fruits, whether ripened in 
England or imported from foreign countries, 
I find the names— sometimes often recurrent 
—of about thirty. Vegetables are spoken of 
in about equal proportion. Products of the 
nature of spice and medicines are mentioned 
to the extent of about a score ; and the same 
Slower (Brower 
is about the number of what are contemptu 
ously called weeds. The total is about 150." 
“ We must remember that Shakespeare had 
no floras to consult; it is doubtful if he 
could have found a botanical teacher. The 
only books upon plants then in existence 
were the writings, in Greek of Theophrastus 
and Dioscorides, and, in Latin, of Pliny and 
Columella, with such herbals and histories as 
had been produced in his own age ; those, 
for instance, of Fuchsius and William Bul- 
leyn.” 
For those who wish to make a Shakespeare 
garden it must be disappointing to find that 
the plants he mentions are so few in number. 
The list of 150 plants which Shakespeare 
mentions would be but little augmented were 
such contemporary writers consulted as 
Raleigh, Drayton, Marlowe and Spenser. 
The last named poet in his “Garden of 
Beauty," writes : 
Bring hither a pink and purple Columbine 
With gylliflowers." 
In another place we find : 
" Her lips did smell like unto gilliflowers,” 
which he spells differently this time. In yet 
another poem we read : 
" Strew me the ground with daffie-down-dillies 
Cowslips and King Cups and loved lilies." 
Shakespeare was, of course, familiar with 
the pleached or clipped hedge or bower, for 
he writes of 
" The pleached bower 
Where honeysuckles ripen’d by the Sun 
Forbid the Sun to enter." 
There is a wonderful and almost prophetic 
passage in “Henry V” which tells of a ruined 
France (and incidentally shows Shakespeare 
to be an admirer of a well-kept hedge' : 
The naked poor and mangled peace 
Alas ! she hath from France too long been chased. 
And all her husbandry doth lie on heaps, 
Corrupting in its own fertility ; 
Her vine, the merry cheerer of the heart. 
Unpruned dies ; her hedges, even pleached. 
Like prisoners wildly overgrown with hair. 
Put forth disordered twigs." 
In “ Henry VI ” there is also a reference to 
the white Flag Iris which is of great impor- 
tance for the planting of the garden. It oc- 
curs in a stirring call to arms, which appears 
to be needed now : 
" Awake, awake, English nobility! 
Let not sloth dim your honors new begot. 
Cropp’d are the flower-de-luces in your arms ; 
Of England’s coat one-half is cutaway." 
In “ Henry VI ” we read : 
" And here I prophesy— this brawl to-day. 
Grown to this faction in the temple garden. 
Shall send, between the red rose and the white, 
A thousand souls to death and deadly night. " 
From this passage I think we may gather 
that he was familiar with Roses trained to 
form a bower or temple. There are, natur- 
ally, several other references to the Rose. In 
one of his poems we find : 
“ Nor did I wonder at the Lilies White, 
Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose.” 
All will remember the lines from “The 
Midsummer Night’s Dream” : 
“ I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows. 
Where Oxlips and the nodding violet grows. 
Quite overcanopied with luscious woodbine. 
With sweet musk roses and with Eglantine." 
In spite of the slight references to the for- 
mality of the Tudor garden, we find Shakes- 
peare a lover of the simplest flowers. As the 
writer in the old number of The Garden be- 
fore referred to truly says: “Having only 
simple plants to deal with, he has shown us 
how all comes right to a master, that the 
Cowslip is every bit as good an illustration, 
and comes charged with as much beauty as 
the proudest Laelia or any other floral aristo- 
crat that fetches ten guineas a root ” 
205 
The lines from “The Tempest” which 
Ariel sings, will be familiar to all 
" Where the bee sucks there lurk I 
In a cowslip's bell I lie." 
What could be more charming than this 
reference to the Daisy, to which he compares 
the hand of Lucrece : 
" Without the bed her other fair hand was 
On the green coverlet ; whose perfect white 
Showed like an April daisy on the grass." 
Again he compares the Violet to the eye- 
lids of a sleeping lady : 
“ Violets dim, 
But sweeter than the lids of Juno’s eyes 
Or Cytherea’s breath." 
In another of his poems he sings of the 
spring : 
“ When Daisies pied and violets blue 
And lady-smocks all silver white 
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue 
Do paint the meadows with delight 
In yet another one we read: 
" The flower that is like thy face, pale primrose nor 
The azured harebell like thy veins, no nor 
The leaf of Eglantine; whom not to slander 
Out-sweeten’d not thy breath.” 
"The daffodils that come before the swallow dares" 
have been recently referred to in The Garden, 
and Shakespeare sings of them again in the 
poem beginning : 
’’ When daffodils begin to peer" 
The Rue and Rosemary, those herbs of 
“ grace and remembrance ” from the "Win 
ter’s Tale,” have also been referred to. 
There is one charming reference to the 
Pansy in addition to the words he puts into 
Ophelia’s mouth : 
" There’s Pansies that 's for thoughts." 
It is to be found in “The Midsummer 
Night’s Dream,” just after the well-known 
line “In maiden meditation fancy free": 
"Yet marked I where the bolt of Cupid fell. 
It fell upon a little western flower, 
Before, milk-white, now purple with Love’s wound. 
And maidens call it Love-in-Idleness ; 
Fetch me the flower ; the herb I showed thee once : 
The juice of it on sleeping eyelids laid 
W'ill make or man or woman madly dote 
Upon the next live creature that it sees.” 
Space forbids further quotations, but those 
given are enough to show what a glamor 
Shakespeare throws over the few flowers he 
mentions, even if they be but “ winking 
Mary-buds that begin to ope their golden 
eyes when the lark at heaven’s gate sings." 
H. H. Warner in The Garden. (English.) 
Massachusetts Agricultural 
College Flower Show. 
The Division of Horticulture of the Massa- 
chusetts Agricultural College staged a “Coun- 
try Fair” on October 15, 16 and 17, and in 
connection with the meetings of the Ameri- 
can Civic Association. It followed more the 
lines of a horticultural fair, taking the place 
of the Horticultural Show, which was held in 
December of last year. The weather was fa- 
vorable for staging exhibits in tents, the at- 
tendance was good, and the exhibits were of 
fine quality. Judging from the success of the 
fair, it should be staged next year on a larger 
and better scale. 
Without doubt one of the most attractive 
exhibits was the flower show of the Depart- 
ment of Floriculture. Other exhibits were 
staged by the Departments of Pomology', Hor- 
ticultural Manufactures. Vegetable Garden- 
ing, and General Horticulture. In addition 
there were also present the usual “hot-dog 
stand," the fortune teller, the games of chance 
and other features found at a country' fair. 
Table decorations of Roses were staged by- 
senior students. The awards in this class 
