1868 . ] 
EXHIBITING ALPINE AND HERBACEOUS PLANTS. 
255 
others in the same families. What would become of our shows if the 
same tactics were carried out in other classes? Imagine an exhibitor 
busy at work the day before the show, putting flowering cuttings of Ixoras 
or Heaths into large pots. This is precisely what even our best growers 
do with plants like Iberises—so peculiarly adapted for growing into the 
neatest of specimens in a short time, and without any trouble. 
There is no class which offers to the tasteful selecter more beautiful 
or more varied subjects than the one under discussion—none that will 
better reward the enthusiastic cultivator. It is quite a new field, and 
almost an inexhaustible one. The judicious exhibiting of the finer alpine 
and herbaceous plants would really show to the million what treasures are 
within their reach, and help to spread more quickly the growing taste for 
them; and there is no doubt that a more widely-spread knowledge of them 
would do more good than that of any other class of plants, because they 
may be grown by all, and enjoyed by all. Therefore, apart from any 
honour or pecuniary advantage to be had, those who would grow them and 
show them well, would be doing a real public good. Of course, I am not 
sanguine enough to think, that if hardy flowers were grown abundantly in 
a given district, everybody therein would suddenly become virtuous and 
amiable, or that the presence of a collection of spring flowers would imme¬ 
diately shed around an amelioration which eras of great effort have failed 
to produce ; but let us doubt not that “ through the ages one increasing 
purpose runs,” or, that every simple pleasure and pursuit which attracts 
men from the baser modes of passing their time, is a gain to humanity. 
Simple yet inexhaustible, healthful yet most intellectual of pursuits, ours is 
“ the purest of human pleasures ”! And I think I may promise every 
beginner, that he will find the highest pleasure of this first of real and 
healthful recreations, is the culture of hardy plants in the open air. There 
is not a waste spot in the smallest, or largest of gardens that may not be 
beautified by them; the very chinks of the walls may glisten with the 
silvery Saxifrages and other lovely plants that prefer such positions— 
I have lately seen a beautiful miniature rockwork well covered with plants 
on the stony slab outside a window; their presence in good variety, in 
cottage and villa gardens everywhere, would impart a new charm to our 
spring and early summer, and could not fail to awaken such interest and 
curiosity, and lead to the spread of such plant-knowledge as would have 
the best effect on horticulture. However showy or beautiful any other 
family class of plants may be, it may be safely said that in no other class 
could be found so much varied beauty. In it we have “ a little of every¬ 
thing.” We may render our group interesting with hardy Orchids, such 
as Cypripedium; we may be bright as fire with the vivid Anemone fulgens; 
green and graceful here and there with plants grown wholly for their leaf 
