Plate 167 . 
PELARGONIUMS, ACHILLES AND ARTIST. 
The present season is another evidence of the varying cir¬ 
cumstances which befall the raisers of seedlings, for while the 
number brought forward, of really good kinds, was unusually 
large last year, it has been equally small during the present 
one; and while the chief honours then were awarded to the 
productions of Cl ewer Manor and Worton Cottage, they have 
this season been carried off by that veteran and most successful 
of all our seedling raisers, Mr. Hoyle, of Leading, from whose 
collection have come the two very beautiful and perfect flowers 
which form the subject of our present Plate. 
We have called Mr. Hoyle the most successful of our Pelar¬ 
gonium raisers, and we do so advisedly, remembering at the 
same time the many fine varieties which have been raised by 
Messrs. Forster, Turner, Beck, Dobson, and others, for his 
flowers have stood the surest test of value,—the length of time 
that they have continued on the catalogues, and the large num¬ 
ber which appear from year to year on the exhibition-table; 
even those who are themselves raisers, notwithstanding the na¬ 
tural feeling that we have for our own productions, making 
more extensive use of them than of their own flowers. As a 
rule, his flowers are better in shape, opening more fully, and 
rounder in outline. 
The two flowers which we have now figured were exhibited 
at the June show of the Loyal Horticultural Society and at the 
Loyal Botanic Society, at both of which places they obtained 
first-class certificates, and deservedly so. We were examining 
them with two of the most enthusiastic amateur florists in the 
kingdom, whose admiration of them,—and they were really 
judges,—was not less than our own ; and the observation was 
