Plate 218 . 
VARIETIES OE SWEET-WILLIAM. 
There are some flowers which are popular because of their 
rarity, and others because of their commonness, and a few per¬ 
haps for the associations that are connected with them; for 
there are few things with which the memory of past days is 
more thoroughly connected than some of our commonest flowers. 
The garden of our childhood, the place where we have gathered 
some and seen others growing, are amongst those things which 
cling the closest to us; and few flowers are in the latter sense 
more popular than the Sweet-William. 
But we should not for such reasons as these have decided on 
figuring this pretty flower, but because it has shared, amongst 
others, the skill and energy of the hybridizer, and can boast of 
great improvement and progress. Some years ago it was taken 
in hand by Mr. William Hunt, of High Wycombe, who esta¬ 
blished for himself a reputation connected with the flower, having 
obtained both brilliancy of colour and rotundity of form. Since 
then various other growers, both in the north and south of 
England, have followed in the same course, and from time to 
time many beautiful stands have been exhibited at the various 
horticultural exhibitions, where they have always attracted 
great admiration. The stand exhibited by Mr. Hale, of Stoke 
Pogis, near Slough, was amongst those florists’ flowers so much 
admired by the Princess of Wales at South Kensington in 
July last, and from it we have selected two varieties for our 
illustration. 
Like the Calceolaria, there is no necessity for obtaining va¬ 
rieties, for from a package of seed as good flowers can be ob¬ 
tained as from cuttings, and hence the value of these improved 
sorts; and then they are so perfectly hardy that they may be 
