200 
before, that rewards so gained tend in a restricted 
degree to promote the progress of horticulture—for 
they encourage florists to import and to foster the 
rarest of plants, and such as require great skill to 
cultivate. But could not the same important object 
be better fostered and attained by the two great 
Metropolitan Societies offering their highest rewards 
to smaller collections? We think they could; for 
we never see in the collections of thirty plants, 
specimens not to be found in the smaller collections. 
Neither are the thirty-plant collections better grown 
than the plants of the smaller groups. Then to 
number and size is the highest prize given—not to 
pre-eminent skill; and gardeners, everyway the equals 
of those who exhibit collections of thirty, have to 
labour under the mortification and depression of 
knowing that, though their twelve or twenty plants 
may be equal or even superior specimens of cultiva¬ 
tion, they can never obtain the highest public re¬ 
ward of their art, because two parties are able to 
exhibit ten plants more. The higher the rewards 
offered to smaller collections, the more numerous 
would be the competitors, and, as a consequence, 
greater would be the benefit, for more widely diffused 
would be the struggle, and more numerous would be 
those who witnessed the skilful efforts for the crown¬ 
ing reward of horticultural merit. No argument 
need be brought forward to prove that these in¬ 
creased centres of exertion would be proportionately 
beneficial to their neighbourhoods, as well as to the 
gardeners employed; and it is equally needless to 
argue that a florist would be as much benefited by 
selling a larger number of good specimens of a rare 
plant, as he would bejby selling one huge specimen. 
Sustained by these considerations we feel no doubt 
as to the desirability of an alteration in the rules for 
the award of the greatest prizes of the two societies, 
for at present those prizes are not awarded upon 
terms seeming that they shall be earned by speci¬ 
mens demonstrating that their cultivators possess 
the greatest amount of horticultural skill. 
Descending to minor particulars, we would direct 
the attention of the councils of the societies to the dic¬ 
tation of some rule restrictive of the use of training 
stakes. We are not inclined, as some are, to exclude 
these regulators altogether, because we all know that 
some flowers, such as several varieties of fuchsia, 
could not be exhibited in pots advantageously with¬ 
out some slight support. But we do protest against 
the excess of such training and displaying. For 
instance, one specimen at the last Chiswick show, 
Compte cle Beaulieu, was exaggerated by having all 
its blossoms trained round and staked so as to face 
the spectator—a trick which, so far as Horticultural 
shows should be exhibitions of skilful culture, and 
not of manoeuvring, should exclude all such speci¬ 
mens even from being entered for competition. 
We should like to be informed if there is any 
July 
reason why at Chiswick so few plants, cultivated by 
the Society’s own skilful gardeners, are exhibited. 
Instead of these plants being exhibited, -we see such 
notices as this placed against the Stoves—“ Hothouses 
not to be opened this day.” Surely in a Society to 
which we look for example as well as precept, 
this should not be, but, on the contrary, when 
thousands are gathered there from all parts of our 
islands, the whole stores of the Society should be 
thrown open for their instruction. We regret this 
the more, because the ferns and the Californian 
plants, exhibited on the 1 ltli, were sufficient to make 
us wish for other specimens. 
Having so recently written upon the arrangement 
of flowers, we cannot refrain from referring to that 
of the two great collections on the 11th; for they 
afforded some striking illustrations of the effects in¬ 
separable from tasteful and from ill-contrasted ar¬ 
rangement. Mr. May’s plants were indisputably 
finer than Mr. Coles’, but they were rendered still 
more striking by their more judicious juxtaposition 
of colours. We must confine our comment to one 
point, and it shall be the summit of each group. 
Both were in a pyramidal form, [and the apex of 
Mr. May’s was formed by the golden flowered Alla- 
manda cathartiea, and adjoining it was its natural 
complemental colour in the blue petals of Sollya 
linearis, and yet relieved, for the blue is somewdiat 
too dark, by being associated with the white clusters 
of Stephanotis floribunda. Than this nothing could 
be more skilful; whilst Mr. Cole had the white 
flowered Scliubertia graveolens as the summit colour 
of his pyramidal group, and when white thus forms 
the apex of such a form, no arrangement of colours 
near it can be adopted to render it pleasing. Yet to 
render the effect still less agreeable, and as if, at 
once, to be violent and monotonous, scarlets were 
placed on each side, the Clerodendrum keempferi and 
Clerodendrumpaniculatum being, on either hand, its 
next neighbours. The superiority of taste displayed in 
the arrangement of Mr. May’s group struck us most 
pointedly, and though this could have no influence 
over the prize award, yet it had a great influence in 
enhancing the gratification of the numerous eyes 
that enjoyed this display of natural beauty. 
THE ERUIT-'GAKDEN. 
Budding. —As the time is at hand for budding 
all kinds of fruits, it may not be amiss to offer a 
few plain remarks to the uninitiated. We may first 
offer the rationale of the process, and we cannot 
do better than make an extract from a celebrated 
modern author, who thus aptly describes it:—“The 
buds of trees are originated in the young shoots 
in the axils of the leaves; and when the bud 
begins to grow, its connexion with the medullary 
sheath (sheath of the pith) closes, or, at all events, 
the bud, if detached and properly placed in the 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
