174 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER 
June 9. 
places which supplied the exhibition tables. The 
“young man” had the highest possible recommenda¬ 
tion ; he knew how to grow plants for exhibitions, and 
he proved the fact the very first time but one that he 
tried for a prize Rut when the Council of the Horti¬ 
cultural Society determined on offering jrrizes for au¬ 
tumn-flowering plants, and winter-flowering, and forced 
plants and vegetables, there were neither young nor 
old gardeners in a condition to compete against the 
foreigner, and Mr. Solomon, of Covent Garden! The 
good old rule of having forced Asparagus on Lord 
Mayor’s day, and forced Potatoes for the first dinner of 
the new year, is now departed from, and the time and 
space of the gardener are occupied with the exhibition 
plants instead. We have no Moss Poses, and rarely 
a bunch of Violets, for Christmas day, as of old; forcing 
against nature is thought too vulgar; and those who 
looked for Lettuce and other salad plants in winter, 
belong to the old school, and must fall back on old- 
fashioned country gardeners to supply their tables and 
china vases while the frost is in the ground. Good 
collections of stove and greenhouse plants, to flower 
all the round of the seasons, have given place to a 
minimum of the commonest and easiest plants to keep 
and to bring up in a “mass of bloom” in May, June, 
or July, under the auspices of the award committees. 
One Ixora, or a fine Medinilla, from the stove, with 
nineteen of common Australian and Cape plants from i 
the greenhouse, now constitute a “collection of stove 
and greenhouse plants,” worthy of “a large gold medal.” 
Who, then, would incur the expence of a general 
collection, or take the trouble to nurse plants that are 
in any way difficult to manage? Even the vitiated 
taste that would confine nature “in stays,” and train 
all kinds of plants in to globes or balloons, have so 
thoroughly depreciated the ideas of the “leaders," that 
it a man others to depart from the stereotype notion, and 
to bring the shape of a terrace-garden plant,—standard 
or pyramidal,—to Chiswick, he is told, in sarcastic terms, 
they arc inadmissable; that they are “ trimmed into a 
thing like nothing so much as a fly-flapper, or the 
broom of a Bavarian hawker!! ” 
So, it is high time for our best flower gardeners to 
give up standards, whether they be Roses, Myrtles, 
Pomegranates, Bays, Laurels, or what not, and to fill up 
conservatories, terrace gardens, avenue walks, and all 
the regularly laid out figures in and about the garden 
with globes in stays! Let them give no heed to the 
earnest strains ot Mr. Beaton in favour of standard 
jilants, for be it known that our fellow-labourer, Mr. 
Appleby, has had the temerity to “show” standards, 
not “ trimmed plants,” but grafted standards of the 
beautiful Deutzia gracilis, at the last exhibition at 
Chiswick; and the censor meets him at the garden gate 
with “ Y\ hose and what are these execrable plants with 
which thou darest to thwart my ways?” 
All this deserves pardon, however, because the dawn 
of a better stale ot things appears in the next paragraph. 
i he sameness, too, of the plants comprehended in 
geneial collections, is destroying the interest which would 
otherwise be taken in such remarkable examples of skill. 
For what do the spectators say 1 If you point out any 
points of excellence, the answer is, “Oh ! very fine certainly; 
but these are only stove and greenhouse plants, and we 
always find them here. They come year after year, and I 
really do not see any difference between one show and 
another.” It cannot be denied that this is too true. Pime- 
leas, Boronias, Eriostemons, Allamandas, and Polygalas, 
form the staple, to which are added some Azaleas, an 
Epacris perhaps, a few Heaths, and an Aphelexis or two. 
But wo submit that these do not constitute such a collection 
of stove and greenhouse plants as interests the public. 
Many belong to other parts of the exhibition, some are 
hackneyed, and of no more importance than a “ Swiss 
giantess” at a fair; and the whole contribute in the least 
possible degree to that variety which is the charm of an 
exhibition. It will be seen that five collections contained 
Pimelea spectabilis, four Boronia pinnata, six an Aphelexis, 
and eight or nine Epacris grandiflora or miniata. That this 
requires total alteration admits of no doubt, and we wonder 
that men so rfharp-witted as the exhibitors should not see 
how such a want of variety ruins the interest which their 
I great horticultural skill would otherwise command.” 
Thus it is, that the constant dropping of truth and 
1 fair reasoning in these pages about the effects of the 
! system maintained by the funds of the Horticultural 
1 Society have made an impression, and thus the sad 
truth is admitted ; but we, on the contrary, do not 
at all “ wonder that men, so sharp-witted as the exhi¬ 
bitors,” should not have found out the commonest and 
least expensive plants, and those that are the most 
easily managed, when we see in the prize lists tempting 
gold and silver medals are so freely awarded to such 
plants by the same hands and heads as now deplore 
j “ the sameness” produced by their own short-sighted 
| policy in admitting the same plants, and the minimum 
of distinct species, month after month, and year by 
! year, to compete for the prizes. 
It is quite true, that “none can judge more correctly 
of the true value and import of such exhibitions than 
English gentlemen ;” hence the cause why their names 
and numbers, as subscribers, become less and less every 
year; and also the reason why we began so early to 
point out the damage done to the nursery trade, and 
to the gardener, by the way pursued in the name of 
the Horticultural Society. 
“ That this requires total alteration, admits of no 
doubt;” but the alteration itself will be most difficult, 
if not even dangerous, to the existence of the Society. 
There is a wide-spread discontent at the harsh manner 
in which everything and every person who conic in 
contact with this Society are treated. If a gentleman, 
like Mr. Rucker, thinks he has done enough for one 
branch of gardening, and is satisfied to rest on his 
laurels for the future, he must endure and put up with 
the annual annoyance of being told before the world 
that bis plants were not missed, or that the Society 
can do without him. If, on the other hand, one is 
bold enough, like Mr. Appleby, to introduce any system, 
however prized by “ our high-born dames,” be is met 
with sneers and nicknames; but that system, too, is as 
prejudicial to the cause and strength of the Societjq 
as that about awards to collections of stove and green¬ 
house plants, which are of small interest to any one but 
those who get the prizes for them. 
