THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
February 12. 
300 
As it is to the interest of all our readers, whether they 
are the buyers or the sellers of garden produce, that 
where this produce may be obtained should be exten¬ 
sively published, we have no hesitation in giving pro¬ 
minence to this communication from a gentleman who 
has had a long practical knowledge of the subject on 
which he annotates. 
The Philosophy of Advertising is only understood by 
few persons, and it is as well for them that the knowledge of 
it is so limited. In the absence of publicity, Mr. A.’s nursery 
may have in its stock ten thousand over-grown or full-grown 
trees that must be thrown away the next season; and Mr. 
B. may be hunting over all the nurseries but the right one, 
endeavouring to find those very articles. An advertisement 
in a work cheap enough to be used by all, and read by all, 
would save Mr. B. all his fruitless journies, and produce 
Mr. A. a good customer, for what at length brings him 
nothing. Be it remembered, too, that this sort of occur¬ 
rence is common ; there is hardly a well-established nursery 
in England, Ireland, or Scotland, but has some part of the 
stock “ growing out of money; ” that is, past the size and 
age in general use; and though it may seem strange to 
persons young in the business, or not in the business, thou¬ 
sands of subjects upon which great labour and money have 
been expended, are periodically destroyed, because, if kept 
longer, they would not safely remove, and they are not worth 
the labour of another removal in the nursery on account of 
their advanced growth. Advertising would stop the necessity 
for all this waste. Those who, for cheapness, buy younger 
and smaller plants than they really wish to use, would be 
induced to clear off a piece of full-grown stuff, if they knew 
where to obtain it; while others, who want things of larger 
size, may, in the absence of advertisements, hunt the 
country over before they can be found, and perhaps they are 
not found at all. 
It may be objected, that there are so many periodicals to 
advertise in, that it is difficult to choose the one most likely 
to answer, and that all would be too expensive;—why then 
do not the trade adopt one that shall be seen by everybody ? 
Those who can remember from the years 1832 to 1840, 
when there were thirty or forty cultivators of the Dahlia for 
sale, and who used to advertise their full catalogues, will 
remember a period when advertising was one of the largest 
items in a florist’s expenses, and from the year that the 
trade began to lessen their advertising, they lessened their 
sales in a much larger degree. From that moment, the 
public began to fancy that the flower was not so fashionable, 
and nobody has a notion, unless they have studied the 
subject, what a capricious animal that same public is. No 
sheep in a walk ever followed their leader more regularly 
than the mas3 of the public follow advertising. If the 
leading sheep of a flock makes a leap at a cabbage-stalk in 
its path, every one of its companions make the same jump, 
at the same imaginary obstacle; so while the garden pe¬ 
riodicals teemed with Dahlia advertisements, everybody 
would grow them, and when the dealers left off advertising, 
the public caught the infection, and left off buying. That 
is to say, the majority ol people who adopt a practice 
because they think it the fashion, declined growing them 
as soon as the publications seemed to show that there was 
a decrease of the interest which the world took in them. 
The dealers are rapidly aiding in this downward movement. 
We have only mentioned the Dahlia, because its rapid 
rise and popularity was hastened by advertising; its decline 
was brought on by curtailing the means of publicity; but 
our observations apply to garden produce generally. Why 
have some men done more business than half the older and 
more established nurserymen ? For no other reason than 
because they have disregarded the expense of advertising. 
People have seen their announcements until their names 
are as “ familiar as household words,” and the first novelty 
they wanted, they have ordered from the advertiser. Why 
have “ Parr’s Pills,” and “ Holloway’s Pills,” and even 
“ Morrison’s Pills,” become articles of large commerce in 
all the towns in the kingdom ? Simply because it is im¬ 
possible to take up a periodical without seeing their wonder¬ 
ful efficacy set forth in all forms of paragraphs and adver¬ 
tisements. No sensible man ever suspected that “Parr’s 
Pills” added fifty years to a man’s life, or that “Hollo¬ 
way’s ” could cure a man of a wooden leg, or that “ Mor¬ 
rison’s ” were the universal remedy for all complaints. 
Every publication teemed with the wonders they had per¬ 
formed, and every wiseacre who fancied he had anything 
wrong in his health, tried them. How is it that a lady 
would as soon be without her comb, as be destitute of 
“ Rowland’s Macassar ? ” Simply because it was advertised 
as possessing a thousand virtues, until it was the- fashion to 
use it, and this was followed by “ Rowland's Kalydor,”’ 
which completely put out of commission the mill at Old 
Ford, which was said to grind old people young. And all 
this popularity has been acquired by dint of constant ad¬ 
vertising. Since articles not superior can thus be forced 
into a sale, he who stickles at fifty or a hundred pounds for 
advertising a really excellent article, which is sure to prove 
all that is said of it, is a sad mis-calculator. We remember 
to have heard an advertiser boast, that by a little judicious 
curtailment, he should save three hundred pounds in his 
advertising account alone, and when we saw him at Christ¬ 
mas, he was grumbling because of business he had done 
fifteen hundred pounds less. If, in short, a man wants to 
do business, and keep pace with the times, he must advertise. 
It creates business. Men are not much better than children, 
who want everything they see. A man always wants that 
that is constantly spoken of, written of, or placed before his 
eyes. The history of trade, past and present, from Moses’s 
cheap clothes, to Warren’s blacking, proves the advantage 
of advertising, and in no business is it so efficacious as in 
that of Horticulture. Flowers and fruit are luxuries, which 
he who has the least taste for them, if reminded of them by 
his newspaper, immediately discovers that he wants, and 
before he has read of them half-a-dozen times he feels that 
lie cannot do without them. 
GARDENING GOSSIP. 
Mr. F. Y. Brocas, of Basingstoke, Hants, has just 
issued the second fifty species of his Series of British 
Mosses. They are excellent specimens, well mounted, 
and with their scientific and English names attached. 
We should be very unwilling to supply fifty such speci¬ 
mens, as he does, for five shillings. He has also pub¬ 
lished, on a single sheet, A Catalogue of the Orders, 
Genera, and Species, of British Mosses. It may be had 
for reference on thick paper, or on thin paper to paste 
on the Herbarium, and for foreign correspondence. Its 
price is no more than sixpence. We strongly recom¬ 
mend both these to our readers; and we need add no 
additional motive to the desire of possessing such excel¬ 
lent specimens and catalogues, than the fact that Mr. 
Brocas is raising a fund to enable him to proceed, as a 
botanical collector, to New Zealand. 
The Gardeners Chronicle has put forth one of the 
most severe accusations against the seed trade that was 
ever levelled against a body of merchants—there is no 
distinction; for they are accused, generally, of mixing 
dead seeds with live ones, which, in some instances, may 
be very true, but that such a charge can be brought 
against the whole trade, embracing, as it does, many 
honourable and wealthy men, we deny. Nobody will 
dispute that there are worthless members of a business, 
containing so many hundreds — men who depend on 
some trumpery agency from country growers, and retail 
inferior seeds; but such a charge can never be main¬ 
tained against the body at large ; and the only caution 
we should bo inclined to give the public, is, to avoid 
X 
