8(5 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, November 13, 1860. 
ice, -which was a very uncommon thing, or, in other 
words, they deduced laws from exceptional events ? 
The summer of 1859 was so exceptionally dry and hot, 
that new rules for getting hold of water, and for keeping 
it for use, were as freely suggested as if every succeeding 
summer were to add to the effects of that which went 
before it. The summer of 1860 turned the tables without, 
seemingly, turning the thoughts of any one of the pro¬ 
phets, whose rules are and have been deduced from the 
exceptions of natural laws, so to speak. No ox has been 
sacrificed on the ice of the Thames since 1814, and no 
one can say when the next will be. No standing corn 
or sheaf in shock was seen with us in November from 
1816 to 1860, and from no pulpit of ours were prayers 
igsued for rain in the midst of the hay harvest since 
1826: therefore, to draw a single rule or inference 
from the state of the weather at these periods, with any 
reasonable hope of being of the smallest use for future 
guidance in gardening or farming, and many other 
things, is simply an oversight of zeal. No: they may 
draw out their rules as straight as the parallels, but as 
long as their rules are founded on exceptional events, 
they are likely to do more harm than good in most 
instances. 
Did you ever think of this side of the subject when 
you have been reading of the value of knowing that such 
and such kinds of plants did so and much more, so much 
better, this very cold, very wet, and very exceptional 
season, than others of the same kind? Well, whether 
you had given it a thought or not, allow me to tell what 
X have thought on the subject—and that is, that all the 
value of the experience that has been gained this year 
in all the flower gardens of the three kingdoms, as far as 
it related to the effect of the weather, is not worth the 
value of a straw ; and not only so, but that adherence to 
any rules which may have been laid down on the subject 
may do some mischief next year, and every year of our 
lives, till there is such another season as that which we 
have just got through. 
Another proceeding in public writing which has a most 
mischievous effect in private practice, without the writers 
being at all aware of it, comes from the side of the so- 
called scientific writers, while no science at all is found 
in their deductions—it is this drawing up inferences 
from exceptional laws to the prejudice of the most 
careful,' most learned, and most conscientious among 
professed gardeners. You have to cultivate a soil which 
will not grow some kinds of Strawberries, as some soils 
are well ascertained in practice not to do. I was the 
last gardener myself who could grow the Downton 
Strawberry, and I was most completely defeated in the 
very last Strawberry I attempted to grow—the British 
Queen, at Shrubland Park, which no mortal can do there 
till the whole nature of the soil is altered ; for the last 
question put to me by my late lamented employer, was 
to ask if I could point out any means by -which that 
kind of Strawberry could be successfully grown at 
Shrubland Park, “for it is such a good one to bear 
carriage.” I only mention this, which happened recently, 
in order to explain my meaning of a serious evil that is 
done to gardeners, without giving it a thought by the 
authors of it. 
Suppose that question had been put to one of these 
same authors, an<i the chances would be that a whole 
establishment would be set by the ears through the 
scientific strain of the answers, which were founded on 
inconclusive evidence, and on the avowed presumption 
of the ignorance of Mr. Taylor, the gardener at Shrub¬ 
land Park, who is well known to be one of the best 
practical gardeners in England. 
Why, Mr. So-and-So finds iio difficulty in growing 
British Queens without a garden at all; but my Lord this 
or that must not only keep a gardener, but, to be in the 
fashion, he must have a gentleman gardener. It is high 
time, therefore, that we should give up this mode of ex¬ 
plaining failures and apply a different rule. It is right and 
proper that we should dismiss all idea of fear, favour, or 
fellowship in arriving at the truth, as in the case of the 
Gazanias ; but it is not well to impute ignorance or 
motives in the actors instead of facts, which should be 
tried in the balances of fair play and good-will to all con¬ 
cerned. And it is still more incumbent upon us, who are 
growing grey in the service of our calling, to set the 
better example to the rising generation, to argue and 
explain facts and failures on their own merits, and not on 
our own estimate of the acquirements of those who may 
be engaged on them. That there is sufficient ignorance 
among the so-called first-class gardeners to humble us is 
but too true; but the greatest ignorance of all, is the 
want of a proper knowledge of how little the best of us 
yet know of many of the things on which we are daily 
engaged; but delighting at railing against that ignorance, 
as some appear to do, will never assist the rest of us to 
! arrive one step nearer the truths of Nature, nor shorten 
the distance that we are from them. 
But there is one rule of thumb among old gardeners on 
the subject of our climate which is verified again this 
season. Exceptional though this season has been, it has 
fulfilled the use of thumb to the letter this autumn—and 
pt is this: if you can secure your half-hardy bedding 
plants on the night of the 10th of October, or the night 
before, or the night after, or on those three nights in¬ 
clusive, there will be nine chances to one that you and 
they shall be free from weather harm for the next six 
weeks, and that you may expect to see the Dahlias and 
the Chrysanthemums blooming together in the open air 
| that season, and three to one in favour of the ensuing 
winter being neither very long nor very hard. Good 
news that, but just as true to the mark as any rule of 
thumb ever was in this part of the world. 
But to help to clear up the dispute about Gazanias. 
No. 1, which was sent by “R. E.” to the Editors, which, 
by-the-by, I have not seen, cannot possibly be rigens. Its 
leaves have no resemblance to any kind of Grass I know— 
certainly not grassy, as we say. The leaves of rigens, which 
I have not handled for the last twenty-five years, are 
short, dumpy, pointed, and quite entire—say, about one- 
third the length and breadth of those of splendens. 
Looking at the flowers of splendens and pavonia only 
would lead one to the same conclusion as that arrived at 
by the Editors, and given at page 76: “We should have 
thought that G. pavonia more likely to be one of the 
parents.” That was also the opinion of Mr. Sydenham 
Edwards, then the proprietor of the “ Botanical .Register.” 
But looking at the thing with the eyes of a cross-hreeder, 
it is hard to believe that a leaf like that of pavonia, which 
is a true pinnatifid one, of seven pairs of leaflets, and an 
odd one at the point, although it is twice the length of 
; the leaf of rigens, should be the parent of a longer leaf 
! in splendens, and that all but an entire leaf ; but it may 
have been so, for we have very little reliable knowledge 
on the effect of crossed composite flowers, and I have 
I been told, though I do not remember it, that the old 
leaves of rigens are partly pinnatifid. 
Rigens was as familiar to me in my young days as my 
| old gloves, the name was then and there as true as botany 
; could make. Donn, from Lambert’s herbarium, used to 
make periodical visits to revise the old names and make 
new ones for the seedlings in that collection for one of 
the greatest patrons of natural history, and one of the 
best practical botanists of that time in all Scotland—the 
late Lady Gordon Cumming. I was aware of splendens 
i as an unnamed cross in London as late as 1834 or 1835 ; 
but for three years—from 1836 to 1839—I tried every 
nursery within miles of London to pick it up for a unique 
collection under my care, as is w T ell known to all the firms 
of that period, for I bought up every rare and curious 
thing I could see with each and every one of them ; and 
although I am just as liable to errors as any other gar¬ 
dener, I am certain it would injure our cause and calling 
