258 . 
THE FLORIST. 
Fruit Committee of the Eoyal Horticultural Society, where it 
received a first-class certificate ; it also competed for Mr. Wilson 
Saunders’ prize of ^5 for the best seedling Grape of the year, 
which was awarded it as such; and in the miscellaneous class 
at the opening fete of the Royal Horticultural Society, at South 
Kensington, it was awarded an extra prize, all of which certify 
to its excellence. The stock, which is now being distributed, 
is solely in the hands of Mr. Stan dish, Royal Nursery, Bagshot. 
Our plate gives an excellent representation of »this valuable 
acquisition to our lists of hardy Vinery Grapes. We consider 
that no garden or greenhouse should be without it; and as, 
from its habit, it is admirably adapted for pot culture, and the 
orchard house, we expect to see it very generally grown both 
in this country and on the continent, where its merits will no 
doubt procure for it a prominent place in out-door cultivation. 
ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY’S GARDENS, SOUTH 
KENSINGTON. 
Modern flower gardening has become one of the fine arts, and requires 
to be judged by a very diflerent standard to what applies to horti¬ 
culture as representing cultivation only—the former depending on the 
combination of certain forms and colours ; the latter recognising solely 
cultivation and training. The one embodies principles dependant on 
the properties of soil, temperature, ’and culture ; the other, the arrange¬ 
ment of plants possessing diflerent colours, either singly or in groups, 
so as to form a picture, and in fact governed by the same laws as critics 
would apply to a painting, which, with a flower garden, may be defined 
as the “ Beautfal,” exhibited in visible forms by colours. 
It will not be difficult, therefore, to understand that the aesthetics of 
modern flower gardening are derived from the same source as the 
aesthetics of any other branch of the Fine Arts—Painting, Sculpture, 
or Architecture. Admitting this, we at once recognise the true position 
of geometrical gardening, and the force of a passage in the speech of 
H.K.H. the Prince Consort, when replying to the address of the Council 
at the inaugural fete, when he stated that he “ hoped to see Gardening, 
and the sister arts Architecture and Sculpture, carried out in harmony 
together in these grounds to their highest perfection.” This quotation 
justifies our introducing the subject, and will guide us in our brief 
review of the gardens on the present occasion. 
Before the gardens were in so finished a state as they now are, we 
thought we could perceive defects in their composition which would tell 
against them more fully when furnished with flowering plants and 
dressed out in their summer attire. A second view of them, in their 
present condition, confirms in some respects our first impressions. 
The polychrome beds of the Saturday Revme, or the Box embroidery 
