NINETEENTH CENTURY 
285 
The quantity of flowers available for the embellishment 
of gardens was multiplied with extraordinary rapidity. Not 
only were new species pouring in from every quarter of the 
globe, but no sooner were they in the hands of horticulturalists 
than garden or “ florists' ” varieties were added by the score. 
The florists’ varieties of Begonia, Gloxinia, Geranium, Cycla¬ 
men, Cineraria, Primula, Streptocarpus, Carnations, Achi- 
menes, Chrysanthemum, Violas, Dahlias, Asters, Verbenas, 
Cannas, and many such-like things, were unknown during the 
early part of last century. Donald Beaton, writing his recol¬ 
lections in 1854 of his early life as a gardener, tells how he 
remembers seeing the first Petunia that ever flowered in this 
country at Lower Boughton, near Manchester, and the first 
Calceolaria in the Epsom Nursery. The institution of Shows 
and Awards of Merit has doubtless done much to stimulate 
the energy of florists and promote the production of new 
varieties. In Thomas Hogg’s treatise on the culture of the 
carnation and other flowers in 1820, he submits the Rules of 
two “ Societies of Florists,” in Islington and Chelsea, which 
had been started some years previously for encouraging the 
cultivation of “ Auriculas, Pinks, and Carnations.” There 
were, he says, “ several other societies of the same description 
in the neighbourhood of London, but these two are not only the 
most numerous in point of numbers, but likewise the most 
respectable in regard to the members composing them.” The 
Rules of this Society are given at length. The subscription 
was £1 ns. 6d. a year, and the value of the prizes, six in 
number, was presented to the successful candidates on Show 
Days. On the appointed days a dinner was held, and each 
member had to buy a dinner-ticket for the Auricula, the 
Carnation, and Pink shows. The flowers were judged by three 
members selected from among those present, and the flowers 
passed round the table while all were sitting at dinner, “ be¬ 
ginning on the President’s right hand, and returning on his 
left, in order that each person may distinctly view them.” 
By 1850 a large number of such societies had teen started, 
particularly in the Midlands. In Bradford, Ashton-under- 
Lyne, Leeds, Stockport, Leicester, Blackburn, Halifax, New¬ 
castle, and nearly all the manufacturing towns, the shows of 
