August 13, 18SP. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
139 
and the showery character of July caused so many gaps to be seen 
on the tables. The conservatory was well fitted up, and formed an 
admirable situation in the Botanical Gardens, where it was difficult to 
imagine one was really in the town of Sheffield. The large attendance 
of visitors in the afternoon must have been gratified to find Yorkshire 
well to the fore among nurserymen, though the big county seems to 
want an amateur able and willing to exhibit in the first flight. It was 
hardly to be expected that the Jubilee Trophy would be wrested from 
Messrs. Harkness, and, among amateurs, Rev. J. H. Pemberton and 
Mr. W. J. Grant seem to have brought back the old days of Messrs. 
Jowitt and Baker, when there were only two “ in it,” and the rest of us 
stood by and wondered. At Sheffield the rivals seemed to have tacitly 
agreed to a division of the spoils. Mr. Pemberton taking the Jubilee 
Trophy, and Mr. Grant the handsome cup offered by the Mayor of 
Sheffield for twenty-four. I do not myself think that any exception 
can be taken to Mr. Grant’s entering and showing in division D, which 
seems below his calibre. He naturally went for the biggest prize, which 
one would have expected to find offered for thirty-six in division C. 
Those who have much the best Boses will surely win much the best 
prizes; and, if we cannot win ourselves, we can admire the Boses of 
those who do. 
Sheffield is certainly centrally situate, and should be fairly easy of 
access to all parts ; and if I again intrude my personal adventures on 
the readers of the Journal it is with the hope that I may “ point a 
moral ” as well as “ adorn my tale.” Lincoln was my sleeping-place, 
■where my worthy landlady, hearing that I had fetched my show Boses 
from the cloak room for fear of the gas, and was seeking a night lodging 
for them, kindly provided a small basin filled with fresh water, and was 
■somewhat dismayed when she saw my boxes. In the morning an 
unexpected change at Betford caught me napping. I saw all safe into 
the van of the fresh train, but omitted to interview the guard ! Alas ! 
how soon had I forgotten the lesson of Darlington last year, when my 
best twenty-four performed part of the journey literally standing on its 
head. Arrived at Sheffield, I flew to the van. Too late ! A porter was 
there before me, and I caught him in the very act of rolling my two 
six-boxes over and over, as if they were barrels or cheeses, in order to 
get them out. I must have been very gentle with him outwardly, for he 
hung about the horse-van as we were starting in evident expectation of 
a tip. He cannot have known how little disposed I was to prevent his 
hanging in any sense. Arrived at the place of exhibition, one box of 
six, though much injured, was exhibited and gained a prize. The other 
box contained when I started One soup-plate, Her Majesty, over¬ 
blown ; one cheese-plate, Mrs. J. Laing, ditto ; three thimbles, Princess 
Beatrice, Comtesse Frigneuse, and Ethel Brownlow, too small to be 
called buttonholes ; and one indifferent Bose, The Bride. These pro¬ 
ductions of Nature I had purposed to exhibit if I could muster sufficient 
cheek, and the tables were fairly crowded so that they would not be 
much noticed, as the consummation of my entry in Class 14 for “ six 
new Roses.” But there was nobody against me, and a good-sized table 
with “ Class 14 ” on it held my little box, while it was yet closed, in a 
•commanding but desolate position in its very centre. One of my earliest 
mentors in the Bose-showing world held (and holds I believe) the letting 
good money go begging by failing to show in any class in which you 
possibly can, to be simply unpardonable. Yet when I opened that little 
lonely box in that prominent position, and saw nothing whatever but 
tubes upside down and some of the petals of one Rose visible under a 
heap of wet dirty moss. I am not sure now whether I ought not to 
have been grateful to that porter after all for so potently solving the 
•question of whether the box was to be shown at all. Class 14 contained 
no exhibits, and my little moral is—not only to make friends with every 
fresh guard at whatever cost, but also, to exhibitors in a small way, to 
remember that six-boxes are especially liable to be upset (though not 
often rolled, I hope), and can really travel without much inconvenience 
with the owner himself. 
Messrs. Haikness’s trophy stand of thirty-six was really very fine 
and well ahead, Horace Vernet, The Bride, Sir R. Hill, Dupuy Jamain, 
Huchesse de Morny, Niphetos, and A. K. Williams being quite first-class. 
Messrs. Mack, however, showed strongly, having a most lovely Marechal 
Niel in a prominent position, “ dressed,” it is true, but very telling. 
They had also Susan, Duchesse de Morny, and Dupuy Jamain in very 
good form. One naturally came to Messrs. Dickson’s stand with in¬ 
terest, hoping to see some of their new Rose3. It was a great dis¬ 
appointment to find they had brought none, and no consolation to read 
in the Journal that their novelties were exhibited at Wirral and Man¬ 
chester, though not at the National Show. It was rather sad to see 
only two seventy-twos, and the name of Cant entirely absent from a 
National Show. But Messrs. Harkness’s first prize stand seemed to show 
■that the end was nearly at hand even with them ; and Mr. G. Paul’s 
blooms, though creditable for the season, were small, and had a tail. 
Messrs. Jefferies and Merryweather showed well in division B. 
In the amateur classes the trophy again naturally attracted the best 
blooms, Rev. J. H. Pemberton’s winning twenty-four being quite in his 
best style. In form and colour his Victor Hugo, which won the medal 
as best H.P. in the amateur classes, was a bloom to remember, and he 
had also Comte Baimbaud (very large and fine), with Horace Vernet, 
Duke of Edinburgh, and A. K. Williams, quite first-rate. The same 
gentleman was the only competitor in division C, but there was nothing 
to be ashamed of in his thirty-six ; he must have made a wonderful 
record at all the late shows. Mr. Grant had not much difficulty in 
winning the cup for twenty four, but he seemed to be past his best, and 
a bad bloom of Madame J. Desbois in the centre rather spoilt the ap¬ 
pearance of his stand. Mr. Prince was well to the front in nursery¬ 
men’s Teas, but the weather had been sadly against them, and all had 
suffered from the wrath of St. Swithen. Rev. F. Burnside was fortu¬ 
nate in obtaining such a handsome prize for his twelve, for they could 
not be called first-class, though Jean Ducher was fine. They were, 
however, decidedly better than any other amateur could show, and that 
is the main thing. In Mr. Grant’s third prize box there was a truss of 
Adam (more often shown as President) exhibited unthinned, and con¬ 
sequently with two or three younger Adams affectionately, but perhaps 
rather obtrusively, surrounding their parent. Someone as I passed by 
was endeavouring to point out an allegorical meaning in these 
descendants of our common ancestor, but I incline to the supposition 
that the exhibitor had no such intention. 
It was noteworthy, in class 21, “ twelve single trusses of any yellow 
Rose,” to find Francisca Kruger first and Marechal Niel second. I 
seem to remember having read in the Journal two or three years ago 
some depreciatory remarks on Francisca Kruger as being, though the 
best of M. Nabonnand’s raising, not a Rose of much merit; and I 
fancy this may have been true, and that the fact is it has very much 
improved lately, as I believe Roses sometimes do. Sometimes green-eyed 
or malformed, it is often, when half open, a most lovely flower. In the 
next class, twelve of any white Rose, Mr. Prince’s new sport was beaten 
by a box of Niphetos, exhibited by Miss Mellish, of surpassing purity 
and cleanness. I was not surprised to hear that all these blooms had 
been cut from one plant. Such a spotless stand in such showery 
weather could only have come from under glass. A wide range was 
offered in class 25, twelve Roses, six of any H.P. and six of any Tea ; 
and it seemed therefore somewhat surprising that the first and second 
prize stands exhibited exactly the same varieties—Alfred Colomb and 
The Bride. The explanation is that each of these is a late and yet a 
first class Rose, and they certainly seemed to show \ery well together. 
On the whole, the N.R.S. and the Botanical Society of Sheffield may be 
congratulated upon as good a Show as could be expected considering the 
circumstances of the season.—W. R. Raillem. 
REVIEW OF BOOK. 
A Handbook of Cryptogamio Botany. By Alebed W. Bennett, 
M.A.. B.Sc., F.L.S., and Geobge Mukbay, F.L.S. London : 
Longmans, Green & Co., 1889. 
To the more advanced botanical student no division of the vege¬ 
table kingdom presents so much interest and is so encouraging to 
original investigation as that devoted to Cryptogamic plants. Flower¬ 
ing plants have been under close observation for such a length of time, 
and the facts connected with their life history have been so freely and 
fully recorded in popular text books, that they have been within the 
reach of all. Differences of opinion have existed amongst the authorities, 
it is true, respecting the more intricate structural or functional peculi¬ 
arities, and with regard to the classificatory value of certain organs in 
particular groups of plants. Generally speaking, however, there has 
been little of an important character in recent years to add to the 
knowledge of flowering plants as affecting the princip'es of their struc¬ 
ture and reproduction. Investigations regarding the evolutions of plants, 
or the gradual transition of variation effected by cross-fertilisation 
through insect aid, have been the most numerous and the most prolific 
of interesting results, while the microscopic observation of embryonic 
development has extended our knowledge on the relationship of plants 
and the origin of singular forms of structure. 
In the case of the Cryptogamic, or so-called flowerless plants, pro¬ 
gress of a very different kind has been made within the past twenty or 
thirty years, chiefly because much less was known respecting them, and 
because there has been a great concentration of attention upon them. 
Considerable improvements have been effected in the means of micro¬ 
scopic research, and this has been an enormous assistance, as the repro¬ 
ductive organs in the Cryptogamia are in all cases minute, and in all 
the lower forms exceedingly so, necessitating the highest powers and 
the greatest care in observation. No doubt the use of imperfect 
instruments by the earlier investigators led to the record of so many 
erroneous statements that have puzzled and misled subsequent observers. 
There has long been a kind of mystery attached to the lower forms 
of vegetation included in the Cryptogamia, and the researches of recent 
botanists have not entirely dispelled this, but they have thrown a much 
clearer light upon the phenomena connected with the growth and 
reproduction, and within recent years well authenticated facts bearing 
on these matters have increased at a rapid rate. Unfortunately they 
have been widely scattered through special treatises, monographs, or 
papers published on the Continent and in the proceedings of scientific 
societies, so that they were practically inaccessible to the ordinary 
student. The work on Cryptogamic botany by the Rev. M. J. Berkeley, 
whose death we have so recently had to deplore, was the first reliable 
attempt to convey a general but scientifically accurate knowledge of 
these plants, and since its appearance in 1857 it has constituted a 
standard work on the subject. Necessarily, however, since then the 
advance has been very great, and something bringing the information 
up to date and containing all that is available has become requisite. 
