551 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ December 31, 1891. 
aristocrat, as of the nan who has made or is making his fortune, 
who delights to have that hobby, and sometimes rides it in an 
intelligent and appreciative spirit, and sometimes only regards his 
fine collection as he would do Dresden China or bric-a-brac ; 
while many who have the finest collections in the country take an 
intelligent interest in them. The Rose is emphatically the amateur’s, 
and especially the lady amateur’s, flower ; it has been, as I have 
already indicated in my review of the Rose year, a bad season for 
it, but the love for it and the consequent interest in it does not flag. 
The Chrysanthemum is especially the poor man’s flower. A tiny 
bit of garden, a small greenhouse, anywhere in fact where a flower 
can be grown, the Chrysanthemum rewards the care of the grower ; 
it is easily propagated and will grow anywhere. That Orchids 
still hold their sway may be gathered, not less from the grandeur 
of the exhibitions, such as the Temple Show and the Manchester 
Great Whitsuntide Exhibition, but also from the constant 
importations of the plants, and the high prices obtained for them. 
When we hear of a grower for sale giving £250 for a plant to 
the fortunate amateur who had obtained it, we may be quite sure 
that the fever is pretty strong. Cattleyas especially seem to have 
created a sensation the past year ; the finding again of the old 
C. labiata, the many varieties in imported bulbs, and especially the 
discovery of what is said to be the king of all Cattleyas—C. Rex, 
have set Orchid growers all a-gog. Cypripediums still claim a 
large support, and have lost none of the favour with which they 
have been regarded for some years. Very few new Roses have 
come to the front this year, the most prominent being Marchioness 
of Dufferin, raised by Messrs. A. Dickson & Sons of Newtownards 
in the county of Down, Ireland. It becomes increasingly difficult 
to raise anything that will exceed in beauty those we already 
possess. Of Chrysanthemums, on the contrary, there seems to be 
no end, and the difficulty is what to select. The Japanese varieties 
have almost shut out the incurved varieties, and except by the 
exhibitors there are, comparatively speaking, but few of these 
grown. There are two amongst the new sorts which are two 
amongst the large number, some thirty or forty, to which awards 
have been given which are likely to be much in favour—Robert 
Owen and Yiviand Morel. The former is a large flower, but I am 
not quite sure whether it is not too heavy a flower. Mrs. Alpheus 
Hardy has proved a most difficult plant to manage, as may be 
evidenced from the fact that at the Great National Exhibition 
at the Aquarium there were only three blooms of it staged, and 
I believe that the best way to manage it is to grow on the old 
plant. 
Other plants have also either retained or increased the favour 
with which they have been held. Begonias, both single and 
double, seem now to have almost reached their zenith, and now the 
efforts of hybiidisers are directed towards getting them to hold 
their flowers erect. The Dutch growers, Ant. Roozen & Co., 
announce erect flowering single and semi-double varieties, while 
in Cannell’s Rosebud we have the index of an advance in the 
direction of the double erect flowering varieties. Carnations, and 
especially the border varieties, have advanced greatly in public 
estimation, and are now sought for in all directions. The florist 
varieties are not, as a rule, suitable for garden decoration; their 
beauty depends so much on delicacy of colour and refinement that 
all this is lost in the bolder features of garden decorations, while 
these self coloured ones which the florist rejects are now especial 
favourites. Messrs. Harkness’s Ivetton Rose, Yeitch’s Queen of 
Carnations, and others from various sources have shown an advance 
in size and form of petal which will make them desirable additions. 
The taste for herbaceous and alpine plants still increases, and 
although nothing very novel has been brought forward, yet in all 
directions one sees evidence of the love for plants whose culti¬ 
vation has so revolutionised English gardening during the last 
fifteen years, has also exterminated the bedding-out system, and 
made our gardens so much more enjoyable. 
The roll call for 1891 does not show such great and conspicuous 
blanks as did that of 1890, but it must ever be in so large a 
body as that which horticulture claims as its own—there must be 
blanks as every year rolls round. Roger Cutler was ever in 
evidence pleading the cause of the Gardeners’ Royal Benevolent 
Institution, and his loss was no ordinary one ; ever ready to seize 
any opportunity for pushing the claims of his “ baby,” which 
under his fostering care had grown to be a full sized power, and 
his loss will be widely felt. In John Dominy we have lost one 
of our most successful hybridisers, whom the Orchid grower will 
remember with gratitude for the good things he has added to 
their favourite flower. Everyone who has ever attended a Dahlia 
show in or near the metropolis has known Henry Glasscock of 
Bishop’s Stortford, the leading man amongst the amateur growers 
and exhibitors of the flower. Fruit growers regret the death of 
Haycock, who had under his care the most perfect fruit garden in 
the kingdom, and whose fruit, for size, and especially for colour, 
were unsurpassed. In Frank Miles, artist and gardener, and in the 
Rev. A. Rawson we have lost two ardent lovers of herbaceous 
plants and bulbs ; the former, indeed, ha3 been lost to us for some 
years owing to mental disease. Jean Sisley, a name well known 
amongst Rose growers, and English in his descent though he lived 
at Lyons, has passed away at the advanced age of eighty-seven, 
and was until the last few months vigorous and bright. And so 
time rolls on, bringing with it its ever-recurring changes, and 
familiar faces and voices are no longer with us ; and the world 
gets on without them, as it will, my friends, without us when we 
too pass away. 
Ar.d now we are looking forward for another year, and I think 
that we may do so with no pessimistic views. Never was the craft 
we love in such wide favour as it is now ; never so many gardens 
and hearty gardeners as at the present day ; and although we miss 
some who have been our guides in the past, yet some remain, and 
younger men are coming forward. To all, then, whether old or 
young, let me send a brotherly greeting ; and may I not, in the 
name of all the readers of the Journal, salute our venerated chief, 
express our thankfulness that he is still able to pilot the ship, and 
our hope that his matured wisdom may be long spared to us ? I 
might have called him our venerable chief, but then I should have 
to apply that term to myself, for we were born in the same month 
and the same year. For thirty years I have been permitted to 
labour with him, and I can cheerfully recognise in him the genial 
friend and adviser. May his shadow never be less. And now my 
fellow labourers, especially ye younger ones, remember that there 
is demand for your energies, and the world will be glad to hear 
what you are doing. There are now eight weekly journals devoted 
to gardening, and it requires something to keep up that supply ; 
but give of your best. Don’t think that there is nothing to 
write about, don’t hold back because other people have written 
upon it, for the treatment even of an old subject by a fresh 
hand is always acceptable. Keep up the credit of our Journal, 
remembering that you have an intelligent and cultured class of 
readers. 
We have not had a cheeering year for gardening, and so 
we may well hope for a better one. Our gardens have not shown 
their usual beauty. A long and bitter cold winter, a cheerless 
summer, and wet autumn, are not promising factors for gardeners, 
such as we have had in 1891, and, like Mark Tapley, we have tried 
to be jolly under them. Let us hope that different seasons await 
us in 1892. “ Hope springs eternal in the human breast,” and so 
we hope on. I may not be your chaplain in 1893, but at any 
rate let me seize the present and wish each and all of you a 
bright and successful year. Troubles, horticultural troubles, we 
must have, but in whatever form they come, American blight, 
phylloxera, woolly aphis, slugs, snails, mildew, orange fungus, 
green fly, take heart of grace and let me end my homily with 
the old time-honoured salutation, 
Pax Yobiscum. 
—D., Deal. 
