158 
THE FLORIST AND POMOLOGIST. 
two Gladiateurs in the field) from Mr. 
Windsor. There was a good show of fruit. 
Pines were few, hut included one or two good 
• Providences and Queens ; Grapes very good, 
especially Black Prince from Mr. Hill, Keele 
Hall, and Mr. Meads, gardener to Raikes 
Currie, Esq., Minley Manor, who had equal 
first prizes. The weight of Mr. Meads’ three 
hunches was 8 lbs. 14 oz. Mr. Fowler, Castle 
Kennedy, and Mr. M. Plenderson, Cole 
Orton Hall were equal first, for Black Ham¬ 
burgh, Mr. Meredith second; and when Mr. 
Meredith is second the hunches which are 
first must he fine indeed, but it was a close 
competition. Muscats, as usual at this season, 
though several excellent bunches were shown, 
were unripe. Strawberries were inferior, 
being comparatively small and having a dull 
appearance. Great complaints are made of 
the Strawberry crops round London ; they are 
a failure this year. Sir Charles Napier, which 
has been largely planted for the supply of the 
London markets, appears to have suffered 
more than other kinds, not even producing 
flower-scapes. Many acres of it have been dug 
in, and the ground cropped with other things. 
OBITUARY. 
Sir Joseph Paxton, M.P.—It is a painful 
duty to have to record the loss of one who held 
so great a reputation both in the horticultural 
and commercial worlds as Sir Joseph Paxton 
—of one who from small beginnings rose to 
high position, who assisted in carrying out 
many great enterprises, and who never in the 
full tide of his prosperity forgot the friend¬ 
ships of his early years, and that love of gar¬ 
dening which was strong in him to the last. 
He was born at Milton Bryant in Bedfordshire, 
where his father was a farmer, in 1801; and 
his attention having been attracted to garden¬ 
ing, he at the age of 15 entered the gardens 
of Sir G. P. 0. Turner, Bart., of Battlesden 
Park. He remained there two years, and 
then went to Woodhall Park, Watton, where 
he continued three years, at the end of which 
time he returned to Battlesden, and was gar¬ 
dener there for two years. In 1823 he came 
to London, and was for a short time in the 
garden of the Duke of Somerset at Wimble¬ 
don. In November of the same year he was 
admitted, on the recommendation of Joseph 
Sabine, Esq., the then Secre ary of the Hor¬ 
ticultural Society, into the garden at Chiswick, 
at that time in course of formation, the ground 
having been previously occupied as market 
gardens. In 1824 he became foreman of the 
arboretum; and while in that position he was 
connected with a practical joke, of an inno¬ 
cent character, however, which excited the 
ire of some of the authorities, and led to his 
suspension from employment. About this 
time Paxton attracted the attention of the 
late Duke of Devonshire, who took great in¬ 
terest in the trees and shrubs planted in the 
arboretum, and conversed with him about 
them; and in 1826 he was engaged to take 
charge of the gardens at Chatsworth. Here 
it was that Paxton first began to exercise his 
talents as a landscape gardener and garden 
architect, and to show that grandeur of con¬ 
ception which characterised his works. The 
waterworks and Emperor fountain, which 
throws its waters nearly 270 feet high, were 
his creation; and so, too, was the great con¬ 
servatory completed in 1840, the forerunner 
of his greatest effort—the Crystal Palace of 
the Exhibition of 1851, so much admired for 
its simplicity and adaptation to the end in 
view, and which has become the prototype of 
a new styte of architecture. Beyond stating 
that Paxton’s plan was that selected out of 
233, it is not our intention to dilate upon this, 
Paxton’s greatest triumph, for it is still fresh 
in remembrance as the greatest feature of that 
great Exhibition, the first of its kind that 
England had seen, and the most permanent 
in its effects. So much was the beauty of the 
building appreciated, that the attempt was 
made to preserve it permanently in Hyde 
Park; but the attempt failed, and happily so, 
for removed to Sydenham, reconstructed, en¬ 
larged, strengthened, and improved, it there 
remains seated on one of the Surrey hills, and 
overlooking terraces, and lawns, and flowers, 
a monument to the genius of the man whose 
creation it was. But it is not with enter¬ 
prises such as these that the name of Paxton 
is alone associated; for he conducted the 
“Horticultural Register,” and “Paxton’sMa¬ 
gazine of Botany,” which at a later date be¬ 
came “ Paxton’s Flower Garden,” a beautiful 
but unsuccessful work, the literary department 
of which was entrusted to Dr. Bindley. In 
1838 he published a “Practical Treatise on 
the Cultivation of the Dahlia,” which was 
translated into the French, German, and Swed¬ 
ish languages ; and the preface of the French 
translation was written by Adrien de Jussieu, 
and that of the German by Humboldt; also 
in 1842 the “Cottager’s Calendar,” and in 
conjunction with Dr. Linclley, “ Paxton’s Bo¬ 
tanical Dictionary,” a most useful work of 
reference. In 1851 he received the honour of 
knighthood ; in 1854 was elected without op¬ 
position member for Coventry in the Liberal 
interest, and continued to hold the seat up to 
the time of his death, though his declining 
health led him to inform his constituents that 
he did not again intend to solicit their suf¬ 
frages. In the same year (1854), he organised 
the “Army Works Corps,” which did good 
service during the Crimean war. Sir Joseph 
was connected with several public companies, 
and a large shareholder in the Crystal Palace, 
by which we believe he lost heavily in conse¬ 
quence of Robson’s delinquency. After the 
decease of his friend and patron the Duke of 
Devonshire, who, with that princely munifi¬ 
cence for which he was distinguished, insured 
his life in favour of Sir Joseph for £20,000, 
he principally resided at his villa, Rockhills, 
