258 
THE FLORIST. 
for a very large portion of the new things that I possess ; and I am sure 
if all who grow equally largely were equally generous there would be a 
much wider taste for good flowers exhibited. I have met florists with 
a very different spirit, who would give wrong names to plants in order 
to mislead, who would never give away a cutting that was worth any¬ 
thing, and whose greatest pride it seemed to be to have something 
which nobody else had. Away with such! they don’t belong to the 
craft, and bring discredit on that which Lord Bacon says is “the purest 
of human pleasures,” and prove only how men can pollute the purest 
and best of earthly things. But even had I not this advantage, there 
are a few rules which attendance to would enable one so desirous 
of getting on tolerably well in new things, and I may then be permitted 
to put this question before us,— How to stock a small garden ? 
I. Never buy a plant that you have not seen in flower. 
Now, in saying this, I do not mean to bring any slur upon those who 
sell, but there are many reasons which make the opinion of others 
unsuitable for one’s own guidance. In the case of seedlings it is very 
difficult (as I should think every one who has ever raised a seedling will 
acknowledge) to determine that it is good for nothing. “ Our geese 
are pretty sure to be swans,” and one does not like to condemn one’s 
own children. It is like a mother over an ugly child ; she looks at it 
day by day; each day the ugliness seems to wear off, until at last she 
is fully persuaded it is the “ flower of the flock.” “ Come here,” 
you say to a friend, “ what do you think of that Pansy ; fine bold eye, 
hasn’t it?” “ Ye-e-s,” drawls out your friend. “ Don’t you really 
think so, then?” “ Ob, yes! bold eye enough; but don’t you think 
that lower petal rather too small ? ” “ Oh, dear, no! ” is your 
indignant reply, a slight qualm at the same time coming over you. 
Another comes in, and pronounces it “capital;” you think him a 
much better judge, and wonder what No. 1 could have been thinking 
of;—you always thought him a bit of a muff. You send it off to the 
editor of some journal, one that you know to be pretty lenient, and you 
get a flattering notice. You now venture a step further, and submit it 
to Mr, Turner’s critical eye, and read on the cover of the Florist :— 
Pansy. M. D. Good for nothing; lower petal too small.” No. 1 
was right, then, after alL You are horribly irate, as irate as the 
mother would be that her ugly baby didn’t get a prize at the baby 
show for beauty. But the case may be different; and although your 
Pansy be defective some one will have it with its fault, and a flow^er no 
way in advance of others already out is throwm on the market. It may 
have, too, a better habit, as a seedling, and this may be a reason for a 
nurseryman taking it off your hands. Again, some persons only look 
at a flower for exhibition purposes; they want, as in the case of 
Verbenas or Chrysanthemums, to show cut flowers, and one, admirable 
for such purposes, is highly praised; you buy it; but, alas I it won’t 
do for you. Take, e. g., King of Sardinia Verbena ; any person who 
Wyants to show cut blooms will probably grow it, as it supplies him with 
a colour he is short of, and admirable for contrast; but I want it for 
display, and am grievously disappointed to find it a weak, weedy thing, 
sure to spoil a bed whenever it is put in, and had I paid bs. for it, 
