44 
COMPANION TO THE FLORAL MAGAZINE. 
parrot, and thirsted for Jones’s gore. You know the story of the old 
lady’s parrot;—how he escaped from his cage; and wandering into the 
inn yard opposite; was immediately attacked by a gigantic raven; and 
how his alarmed mistress; espying the battle from afar, rushed to the 
rescue, caught up her bleeding favourite; and was astounded to hear his 
plucky expostulations; “ Set me down , missus, set me down. Big brute 
has broke my leg. Fit have a go at him. Fit have a go at him.” So 
with me; if Jones broke not my leg; he metaphorically trod upon my 
most sensitive corn; and I determined to “ have a go at him.” 
I went into training forthwith. I studied the catalogues more closely 
than ever; and added a hundred trees to my stock. I remembered; with 
the liveliest and most unchristian gratification; that Jones showed his 
Roses in ginger-beer bottles; and that Mr. Lane; of Berkhampstead; had 
kindly explained to me all the details of his exhibition boxes, and had 
lent me a zinc tube for a pattern. Oh, would I not astonish pay friend, 
and punish him for his execrable disloyalty in sticking the Flower Queen 
into a pop-bottle ! S. B. H. 
EXHIBITIONS. 
L’ Exposition de la Societe Imperiale et Centrale d’Horticulture. 
(Paris, May 9-16.) 
We had the pleasure of assisting, as our friends across the water call 
it, at the annual exhibition of the above society, which holds much the 
same position in France that the Royal Horticultural Society does in 
England ; but its exhibitions are a very different thing to ours ; they are, 
for instance, open for a week, in fact used to be for two months; and as a 
consequence they must be entirely different. This year, it was held 
in the heart of Paris, under a large tent, the ground being laid out as a 
grass-garden, in which beds were formed, and in these were plunged the 
various productions; and notwithstanding the vain-glorious declamations 
of some of the French papers, that they surpass the world as gardeners, 
an Englishman might well be proud at the immense superiority of culture 
exhibited by his own countrymen. The amateur element also was mainly 
wanting, professional gardeners being almost the only exhibitors. The 
Orchids would raise a smile on the countenances of such growers as 
Veitch, Williams, Hay, and Warner. The Pelargoniums were about one- 
tenth the size of those exhibited by Turner and Hobson and others, whilst 
the forced fruits were, at any rate, deficient in size; of their flavour we 
can say nothing. Amongst the novelties were some curious and striking 
new Italian Verbenas, a fine white bedding Geranium, which quite 
surpasses Madame Vaucher, and a beautiful bedding Verbena, Mademoi¬ 
selle Lefebvre, which we believe will form a most decided acquisition. 
