214 
THE FLORIST AND POMOLOGIST. 
[ September, 
any amount of information might he had, while discussions on the principal 
methods of culture took place, opinions on any new or particular flower 
were freely given, and advice was as freely given to the young and inex¬ 
perienced ; but, alas ! the change ! There are no such meetings now, and 
the spirit of enthusiasm as regards floriculture is, so far as Manchester is 
concerned, sadly on the wane. The real enthusiastic old florists have one 
after one departed, and few rise up to fill the void. Formerly there used to 
he within a radius of a few miles round Manchester some scores of Auricula 
and Polyanthus growers ; now you may walk miles in the same localities and 
find none ; and I believe Mr. Chadwick, of Duckenfield, an amateur of over 
forty years’ ardent and successful cultivation, is the only one that has any 
extensive stock of Auriculas. The taste for these lovely gems of Flora seems 
to have departed, never, I fear, to return. 
Amateur societies might do much towards reforming these degenerating 
tendencies of the present age ; hut if any individual makes the attempt to 
bring about a reformation, he is denounced at once as having some 
sinister design, and is looked upon with jealous distrust. This shows too 
plainly the degeneracy of florists. Monthly periodicals conveying information 
in the thousand and one ways of floral and horticultural instruction, have 
one after another risen and departed, in consequence of a want of higher 
mental qualities among the craft; and unless some sound influential 
method he adopted by means of such societies as I have alluded to, to 
instil better tastes and better ideas, I fear that floral or horticultural 
improvement is not likely to make rapid strides. 
One great drawback in this locality is the open system of exhibiting 
collected flowers. This has been so long practised, that it is next to impossible 
to get up an exhibition where the exhibitors show only their own bond ficle 
productions. The general system is to get them how, or where they can. 
Manchester market supplies, in many instances, the greater part of the fruit 
at certain of our exhibitions, while flowers are collected for miles around, 
many parties taking prizes that have no garden at all. So long as this is 
practised, we cannot expect to hear of any great advancement in the culti¬ 
vation of flowers. But why, I ask, should amateurs in this advanced age 
be dullards, lagging in the rear ? Why should they sit idly by, and allow the 
march of improvement to flow on unheeded ? If these societies would bestir 
themselves, and endeavour to have their meetings in schoolrooms, mechanics’ 
institutes, &c., would appoint some popular gentleman or clergyman as 
president, and secure a few lady patronesses, &c., would try to inculcate a 
better feeling, and induce workingmen to adopt more praiseworthy pursuits, 
and would form small libraries of floral and horticultural works, and devote 
a little time and attention to their perusal, we might hope for a better state 
of things. 
Winton, Manchester. 
John Walker. 
