JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
July 14, 1881. ] 
39 
Dahlias and Hollyhocks, and a host of other prim, double, 
artificially moulded flowers, are paraded as among the “grand” 
productions of the florist. A mass of flaming Hollyhocks 
doubtless make a brave show when backed up with taller greenery 
behind, but anyone who thinks that such flowers ought to be 
ranked high possesses but a poor taste. For making a show 
they are very fine ; for close examination they are very poor. 
They are “ monstrous ” abortions, wispy deformities, and are far 
behind a good strain of single Foxgloves, or single Hollyhocks 
even, either as landscape flowers or for being individually in¬ 
spected, and the same is true of the Dahlia. Variety is wanted 
in single Hollyhocks and single Dahlias, and other single flowers, 
including Roses, for the production of double flowers of all kinds 
has gone much too far. 
We hold tenaciously by the position taken up in our “ protest,” 
and are not greatly concerned whether the majority are with us 
or not. The decided “Yes” with which some have answered the 
questions “ Is our sense of the beautiful to be measured by inches ? ” 
and “ Is beauty become a matter to be decided by arithmetic ? ” 
is at least simple, and more to be commended than the “much 
counsel darkened with words,” and not understandable of others. 
It was not, however, what the critics have said that impelled 
us to take a pen in hand, but a bouquet of wild flowers which 
stands before us now. We have a Fern case filled with the 
fruits of many an exploring ramble in the glens. These we would 
not exchange for a whole houseful of Adiantums and Pterises. 
So our glasses might be filled with garden flowers, but we love 
the wild ones better, and therefore the flowers which cheer us 
when the day’s work is done are wild flowers gathered by way- 
sides, hedgesides, and other spots where the gems below-named 
grow. 
The first to be named is the common Ox-eye Daisy—the Horse- 
gowan of our young days. It is a little too common, or its merits 
would have been recognised before now. It is despised, but if 
only those who despise it would look at its spotlessly white petals 
their opinion would change. Compare it with the now popular 
Paris Daisies and see which stands the ordeal best. Some think 
that its golden centre spoils it. Look at the arrangement of the 
florets in that centre, and compare it with the back of your watch 
if it be a plain one, and you will see that it has at least furnished 
a design, long considered inimitable, to the watchmaker. Again, 
one of our best flower gardeners has pronounced the combination 
—yellow and white—when in a flower bed to be a soft and 
pleasing harmony. 
The elegantly-cut snow-white flower which stands all over and 
above the bouquet like a veil is the Stellaria Holostea, and a 
beauty it is, which no garden flower need pretend to rival. The 
small tufts of still smaller flowers which form part of the bouquet 
are composed of the sweet-scented Woodruff, Asperula odorata, a 
plant so common and so much appreciated for planting on rock¬ 
eries and rooteries and similar positions, and for scenting clothes, 
&c., that no one will seek to dispute its charms. These are all the 
whites, with the exception of a spray of Guelder Rose found by a 
river’s side, and which had probably escaped from cultivation. 
Of yellows the first is the small, elegant, and sweet Lady’s 
Bedstraw, which resembles in odour and in size of flower the little 
Woodruff. The next among the yellows is the common Buttercup, 
or, as my children call them “cuppy shells.” A yellow Mimulus, 
and a bonnie little yellow one which we are unable to name 
belonging to the same order (Scrophulariacere), and the well- 
known Water Iris complete the list of yellow flowers. Among 
the blues are three or four species of Forget-me-nots and three 
Veronicas. Praising the Forget-me-nots is unnecessary ; but we 
will stay to say that the little Veronicas, which in June gem every 
wayside and waste, are quite as lovely as are the Forget-me-nots. 
Blueish but not blue are the splendid Geraniums pratense and 
syivaticum. We gathered G. pratense in a meadow where thou¬ 
sands of flowers waved, and a more enchanting sight it would be 
difficult to imagine. The Bluebell Hyacinths we found where 
they grew in acres. The humble but pretty wood Violets and the 
wild Pansies grew together by a stream. 
Among the reds were first the Ragged Robin, or, as it is some¬ 
times called, “ Torn Jacket,” and also Cuckoo-flower : its botanical 
name is Lychnis Flos-cuculi. When a man has many aliases 
beware of him. When a flower or a fruit or a vegetable has, get 
acquainted with it. This one with the many names we commend 
to the florists as one which Nature presented us to show that 
pennies were not her model, and we recommend her “novelty” 
to them. Robin’s near friend the red Campion, which comes 
nearer the artificial standard, we found on a bank. There was 
a large bed of it, but its otherwise blazing colour was toned down 
by being mixed and surrounded with tender green. 
We have red Clover in our bouquet, and it is as good as many 
a garden flower. There are spikes of Orchis mascula and O. pyra- 
midalis of a reddish tinge, and these like many more wild flowers, 
and unlike not a few garden and especially double ones, will 
only prove how beautiful they are when peered into. Last, by no 
means least, among the red flowers of our bouquet are buds and 
open blossoms of Rosa canina. We will not praise it, but we 
ask those who have never done so to look at the flowers closely, 
and not as if there were no beauty in it than can be seen at a 
glance. Among our yellows we forgot to mention the yellow 
Broom and the little yellow Lotus. Grasses stand up through 
the whole, and as a fringe there are Lady, Oak, and Beech Ferns, 
and altogether it would be difficult to match our bouquet with all 
the wealth of the garden from which to choose materials. Only 
a few of the flow r ers have been named, which may be found any¬ 
where almost in the country in summer, and we know of no more 
enchanting treat than to wander by the brawling stream, the 
braes, and explore the “ dens ” in summer time, in order to gather 
the spoils which gem the earth, and to give them to those we 
love.— Single-handed. 
PRESENT-DAY FLOWER GARDENING. 
[Abridged from a paper read at a meeting of the Scottish Horticultural 
Association by Mr. R. P. Brotherston.] 
To arrive at a somewhat correct idea of the flower gardening of 
the present day it will, perhaps, be of some advantage to cast our 
minds for a few minutes into the past, say fifty years back—that 
glorious period for the gardener when no propagating in spring and 
autumn ever disturbed the serenity of his quiet life ; when the trim¬ 
ming of a hedge, the building of a hotbed, the correct nailing of a 
fruit tree, were only relieved by the gentle excitement of carrying 
torches of burning paper through his hothouses to supplement the 
heating power of his flues in keeping king Frost at bay. These were 
the days when a gardener could afford to do things well. Then he 
planted fruit trees to benefit the succeeding generation, and esta¬ 
blished Vines to outlast the vineries that covered them. In these 
days one of the chief accomplishments of his assistants was the know¬ 
ledge of the names of the greatest possible number of flowers ; the days 
when the process of setting Melons was regarded as a mystery. But 
during the next quarter of a century the world made way in great 
strides, and all these things were becoming common. 
During that period what some term a “ monster,” others an “ idol,” 
appeared, and invaded almost every garden in the land. It had 
to be put up in the best quarters during the winter months, 
through the spring time it appropriated all available space in glass 
structures, and a new class of frames had to be invented to prepare it 
for the outside weather. Throughout the summer and autumn 
months it filled series of beds and borders specially prepared for its 
reception and for the display of its gaudy beauty. It grew bej’ond 
the bounds of these, kicked the poor old Bachelor’s Buttons, Gen- 
tianellas, the Pinks and the Carnations, and all the hardy kith and 
kin into the rubbish heap, and established itself in their places ; then 
overran Vine borders and Peach'Jborders, and took possession of window 
boxes. By-and-by it selected all the hardy flowers suitable for its 
own ends, and spread itself a floral carpet in the spring ; then filled 
the beds in winter with particoloured greens from the kitchen garden 
and miniature trees from the woods, and worse than all began to fill 
the gardener’s mind, and left little room for thoughts of building 
hotbeds or clipping hedges, so long as they were out of the ken of 
his new charge. The correct way to nail fruit trees began to be 
forgotten, and gardening students hardly knew there had been 
Bachelor’s Buttons and Pinks ! A few years later the “ Kayis ” in their 
glaring yellow, the “ Kings ” in their royal purple, and the “ Tom 
Thumbs ” in their glowing scarlet, which had reigned so long without 
a rival, had their rights disputed by a race of foreigners popularly 
known as subtropicals ; and following closely on these came a race of 
dwarf-growing foliage plants, which were amenable to the torturing 
arts which had been forgotten since the days when the topiarist cut 
out living shrubs into peacocks and vases 1 
But now another class of flowers began to find a place in gardens 
here and there throughout the country ; and a select band of writers 
whose glory it was that they had not bowed down to nor worshipped 
the idol, attacked it strongly with the avowed purpose of driving its 
image from the fair face of the earth. Those who could not be 
brought to anathematise the system of bedding-out and hurl it from 
their gardens were lectured on their “ depravity,” and advised to 
furnish themselves with colours and brushes, and lay down their 
beds and borders permanently in oils. The most telling adjectives 
were employed in depicting the beauties of what were sometimes 
mere weeds, and in denouncing everything on which the enemy had 
set its seal; yet “ bedding-out ” is with us still, a part of our gar¬ 
dening institutions. 
For the past week or two this work of “ bedding-out ” has been 
engaging the attention of most gardeners, and it will.be only fitting 
after having thus glanced at the way it has worked itself into gar¬ 
dens to give it the first place in this notice of present-day gardening. 
The bedding-out of to-day is something quite different from what it 
was even so late as fifteen years ago. The glaring contrasts and 
overpowering colours of that time have been done away with to a 
