280 
THE FLORIST. 
season ; the dry weather seemed to check the growth of many things, 
and the black fly has proved a sore plague,—arresting growth and 
inducing a stunted habit. Calceolarias, within these two or three 
years, have fogged off, and left vacant places not easily remedied with¬ 
out making patchwork of it; and we verily believe Mr. Lovell's wishes 
in the Gardeners’ Chronicle will be verified by the Potato disease 
transferring itself to scarlet Geraniums ; our own beds indicate unmis- 
takeably that they have taken something near akin to it, if not the same. 
What, Mr. Editor, is all this to-do about the Horticultural Society 
and its new superintendent? We, who live in the country, never 
see behind the scenes, and are ignorant of the way these matters are 
managed in London; but I see the Cottage Gardener and Scottish 
Gardener are in a perfect fury about it, and your own pages condemn 
—if not the appointment, the way in which it was made; while the 
Gardeners ’ Chronicle , which does not usually mince any matter it may 
speak out upon, broaches the subject as if “the less said about it the 
better.” By the bye, your article on “ Education,” and advice to young 
gardeners, a month or two back, and which excited the ire of my 
friends in the north so needlessly, has had an almost prophetic fulfilment 
by the promotion of Mr. Fleming to the Trentham agency—a just 
reward for merit and extraordinary apj lication, say we ; but surely the 
Edinburgh commentator will now be satisfied that justice at last 
(even in his estimation) has been done his countryman, and that 
in this instance, at least, there is no “ mystery ” to look into. 
G. F. 
MOWING MACHINES. 
I saw the other day, in a late number of the Gardeners’ Chronicle , a 
letter from A. Shanks & Son, complaining of the award made, after 
the trials of the different mowing machines on the lawn at Chiswick 
Gardens in June last, they considering such trial insufficient to test 
thoroughly the merits of the respective implements. Having examined 
the work done by Shanks’ and the others, for myself I can affirm that 
the award given by the judges was correct as to the working of the 
machines, Green’s doing its work the best. But, I may add, there is 
some show of reason in considering that so short a trial cannot indicate 
correctly the durability and economy of any machine ; and in justice to 
Messrs. Shanks I may state that I have had one of their 42-inch 
machines at work ever since 1846, which machine has cut upwards of 
forty acres six times over each season of heavy Grass (as we cannot get 
over it oftener than once a month, or three weeks at the earliest), and 
this with only one new cylinder and blades two years back, and the 
occasional straightening of the blades, which sometimes get bent by 
stones or pieces of wood getting between the knives, and it is at the 
present time working as well as ever,—no bad proof that Mr. Shanks’ 
machines are well put together, and very durable. 
F. H. S. 
