March 25. 
COUNTEY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION. 
459 
in any publications which the Council may see fit to sanc¬ 
tion. Should the plan here proposed for the management 
of the Garden he adopted, and should it consequently he 
necessary to dispense with the services of any of those at 
present employed in the Garden, the Committee earnestly 
recommend them to the good offices of the Council, if other 
situations can be found for them ; especially for Mr. Thomp¬ 
son and ]\Ir. Gordon, both having been for a great many 
years faithful servants of the Society, both of the highest 
character and worth, and the Society, which has so long en¬ 
joyed the advantage of their services, cannot now dismiss 
tliem without some sense of self-reproach, nor without some 
discredit in the estimation of all right-feeling persons. 
There are two other alterations in the construction of the 
Society, which we deem essential to its future success; 
having noticed that three at least, if not more, of the Mem¬ 
bers of Council named in the Charter were practical Hor¬ 
ticulturist, we consider it expedient that the same principle 
should still be our guide, and that one-third of the whole 
number should consist of such persons, as the most compe¬ 
tent judges of the condition of the Garden, and most likely 
to take a professional interest in its proper management, one 
being always included in the annual change directed by the 
Charter. Provided always that, while in office, no Member 
of the Council shall be allowed to take advantage of the 
position, in obtaining plants for themselves wdthout a re¬ 
corded permission from the Council. The other alteration, 
whiclr we recommend on the same grounds, will be much 
facilitated by the adoption of this Rule. At present the 
Garden Committee consists of five Members of the Society, 
besides three of its Officers. We consider that those three 
onglit to be practical Horticulturists, and on tlie Council, 
i With respect to tlie increase of income, it is obvious, that 
I one mode of increasing it is by diminishing expenditure; but 
' your Committee have looked minutely into the details, and 
are of opinion that the council has already reduced it as low 
: as the circumstances of the Garden will permit. There is one 
: point, however, to which they wish to call tire attention of the 
Comicil: while they quite approve of a liberal distribution of 
I grafts and cuttings and seeds, and plants introduced by the 
Society, they do not approve of an unprofitable waste of 
I time and labour’, and house-room and expense, in the whole- 
I sale propagation of common things for the benefit of a few 
, Fellows, who might easily obtain the same things at a trifling 
I cost elsewhere. A revision of the rules in this department 
I would be vei’}'’ serviceable. The income derived from the 
■ sale of fruits might be increased. 
I Doubtless something might be gained by discontinuing 
! all publications; but it would ill become an Horticultural 
I Society to refuse to disseminate horticultural knowledge 
! through the laud, and it would be a great hardship upon 
those distant iMembers, who, being only occasionally resident 
in London, dei’ive little other benefit from their subscriptions, 
I except a few seeds and cuttings. The recent experience of 
I the Exhibitions at Chiswick has filled the minds of timid 
peoifle with misgivings, which, after all, may be unfounded, 
and if, in future years, they are confined to two, one in .Tune, 
and one in July, and the tickets if not used in the Garden, 
are mrderstood to give admission to the Exhibition in Re¬ 
gent Street, tliere is reason to hope that they may at least be 
i self-supporting, notwithstanding the expense which must 
necessarily be incurred by a wise liberality in encouraging 
exhibitors to encounter the risk, expense, and inconvenience 
of sending their plants for exhibition. The untoward cir¬ 
cumstances which operated so disastrously upon the finances 
of the Society the last two years may be looked upon as an 
unhappy incident which may never occur again. 'With such 
means and appliances as the Society possesses in its Garden 
for exhibitions of unsurpassable excellence, why should the 
Society despair ? Th*e season cannot always be unpropitious; 
brighter days may yet be in store for the Society. So long 
as the Society is solvent, some risk should surely be incurred 
to secure the continuance of a reunion which contributes so 
much to the happiness of so many families; we venture, 
therefore, to exhort the Fellows not to be faint-hearted, but 
to trust to such a reinforcement of their numbers, by in¬ 
creasing the popularity and celebrity of the Society, as may 
carry it through all its difficulties in triumph. AVe would 
advise that Monthly IMeetings should be held at Regent 
Street, as heretofore, at which prizes should he given for any 
article of vegetables, fruit, and flow'ers of great merit or no- ! 
velty. The basis of this increased popularity is to be found i 
in the sixteenth and seventeenth resolutions of the Council, 
but the Committee suggest some important alterations 
therein. It is proposed, therefore, to admit two classes of 
subscribers, one paying, four guineas, as at present, who 
shall not only enjoy the exclusive privilege of sharhig in the 
distributions from the Garden, but shall be entitled to a 
transferrable ivory ticket, which shall admit the holder to all 
the Exhibitions, to the use of the Library, and to all Meet¬ 
ings in the Society’s rooms ; the second class would consist 
of two-guinea subscribers, paying an admission-fee of only 
one guinea, and entitled to free admission to all Exhibitions 
and Meetings, and to all the other privileges of Fellows, ex¬ 
cept the ivory ticket and a share in the distribution of seeds 
and plants, Ac, It is not proposed to interfere with the 
Life-Members and early Subscribers, who will be left on the 
same footing as heretofore; but that the present four-guinea 
Members may not have cause to complain, w’e propose to 
give them the option of either continuing with the same pri¬ 
vileges as heretofore, with the addition of the transferrable 
ivory ticket, or of dividing their present four-guinea sub¬ 
scription in two two-guinea subscriptions, thereby remaining 
themselves, and bringing in seme member of their imme¬ 
diate family, as a two-guinea subscriber, without payment of 
fees. Of course, the Subscribers sa dividing their pi-esent 
four-guinea subscription would hereafter enjoy only the 
same privileges as tlie new two-guinea subscribers. All pay¬ 
ments should'be due on the day of election, and annually on 
the first of IMaj’, being paid in advance, as is the usage in 
other societies. 
Lastly : since there are some heavy subscriptions remain¬ 
ing unpaid, and it is most essential to ascertain how far we 
can rely upon tlie assistance of the existing Fellows in car¬ 
rying out the proposed experiments, it is highly desirable 
that a letter should be sent by the Council to every Fellow, I 
the object of which would be, not only to obtain the most 
important assurance of continued supiiort,—at least, for a 
year or two,—but to remind them, also, of their privileges, 
by reciting them, with which some are very imperfectly ac- | 
quainted, and at the same time to test their feeling, and, ' 
through them, the feehng of the public, with respect to the 
value of those privileges respectively, so that the Council 
may he able to judge what those are with which it would be 
undesirable to interfere. 
As one means of lessening the expenditure of the coming 
year. Dr. Lindley has given a noble example of self-denial, 
by voluntarily ofiering to give up his salary of £500 for one 
year, while this experiment to revive the Society is in pro¬ 
gress, without withdrawing his valuable assistance. He 
made the same handsome offer in a letter to the Council, ! 
dated 18th July, 18.54, 
It is the earnest wish of some of the best friends of the 
Society, that a Subscription should be raised to pay off the ' 
loans, which bear an interest of (3 per cent., to the amount 
of £-2,400. 
Considerable Donations have been promised, in the hope ■ 
of extricating the Society from its difficulties, 
S. Holmes Godson, Chairman. ; 
SOME VALUABLE BEDDING PLANTS. 
Different people have different ways of knowing 
when a spring is unusually late or unusually early, or 
whether its phenomena appear at an average date. 
Loudon, who was a good garden authority, put much 
faith in the times at which different trees and plants 
came into tlow-er, as showing the backwardness of a 
spring, or the contrary; and, if I was to follow him, as 
I often have done, I could prove that the middle of this 
]\iarch is just three weeks later than the March of 1855, 
from a tree in the Rectory garden at Surbiton. This 
tree is a kind of Primus, or one of the Plum Crabs, and 
was in full bloom last year on the 1st of March, but 
was not so this season till about the 20th of the month; 
while one of the best spring flowers we have came into 
bloom, in Surbiton, in my own garden, this season, on 
