274 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, February 2, 185$. 
. 
them : hut we cannot force flowers up to a third-rate 
decree. If there is a wedding in a family in winter, 
what is more difficult to find, than an abundance of wed¬ 
ding flowers at a cheap rater Many people wonder 
why this should be: but those gardeners who are old 
enough to remember Catholic Emancipation in 1S_9. 
and the Reform Bill of 1832. will also recollect that 
the first start of the London Horticultural Society, 
came to the dogs in the interval between these two 
landmarks of our social progress: and a hostile spirit 
against ** foreing Nature, prevailed in the high coun¬ 
cils of the Horticultural from that day to the marriage 
of the Princess Royal. Hence the scantiness ot our 
part of the decorations. 
But, now that we are to turn a new leaf in the ar¬ 
rangements of our national Horticultural society, we 
must urge the Council to take up and patronise this, 
the most backward branch oi our art. Between the 
last Chrysanthemum Show in November, and the firs.. 
May Exhibition at Chiswick, prizes should be oft ere d 
for the best specimens, and the best collections ot 
forced flowers at all the winter meetings of the Society. [ 
I would give no prizes tor cut-flowers oi any de- 
scription during these months: and I would give :ne 
preference to those collections which included the 
greatest number of plants that were most out of 
season: and I am very sure that a quarter of the 
money which has been foolishly expended by the 
Society, on summer “ collections oi stove and green¬ 
house plants, disbursed in this direction, wm. do more 
read good to gardening, than all such summer collec¬ 
tions have done for the last twenty years. 
It will be just twenty years next May or June, that 
the first collection of rare, curious, and fine-leaved 
plants was exhibited at Chiswick. There were 4do 
plants exhibited then in a special tent set apart for 
that very questionable folly, as many termed it. at 
the time : but see. now-a-days. what our exhibitions 
would be without these kinds of plants, folly or no 
folly. Who had the temerity to break the iee. and 
all the established rules of the horticultural world on 
that occasion r For my part. I would never hesitate 
to break snv rule, for the chance of a step or two in 
the right direction. I would cut into a wedding-cake 
with my pnming-knife. sooner than stand still, or be 
content, so long as there was a single complaint to be 
heard in the land, about gardeners and gardening. 
Hence this temerity. I showed all these plants myself 
—every one of them. The Society gave me the whole 
tent for myself, for I was then. Je facto, one oi the 
Council of the Society : and I had such influence at 
the •• Board,” that they could not well deny me the 
means to run out my tether to that extent. But I 
had weighty odds against me. both at the Board and 
in the open garden: and the sharpest rebuke among 
them all. was from one of the best practical men of 
the present Council—a man. too. who afterwards got 
many a prize for the very self-same kinds of plants 
wki h he then urged so much against. “ If we want 
fine-leaved plants said he one day, “ what is finer 
than our Portugal Laurels, and other evergreens.'' 
Still I persisted : and as long as I have breath. I shall 
persist in this new move also, for the encouragement 
of forcing flowers, after seeing the nakedness of our 
stands at the royal wedding. 
But I have not done with the first move yet. After 
that Show was over, the Horticultural Society ottered 
their very highest medal to me for the 4<>!» plants out 
of bloom. ** No.” said I; 44 stop, and see if the move 
will pay. The Society is grievously in debt; and I 
would as soon have my ears cut otf close, as take a 
farthing from an encumbered body without a soul in 
it.” “The man is daft, some of them said; 44 he is 
purse-proud: he is • this, that, and the otherand 
he has shown a want of respect and great indignity to 
the Society.** These were actually the very words 
which the’ ** heads of departments ’* and members of 
the Council told me 44 face to face.” Mr. Fortune. Mr. 
Thomson, Mr. Gordon, and Pr. Findley, must recol¬ 
lect these things. 
But what a change in twenty* years ! A member of 
the Council, this last season, has been lauded by the 
very self-same “authorities.” for giving back to tin? 
same Society the prizes he took for less than one-half 
of the number and value of my collections. It is, 
therefore, my turn now, ** to say the least of it, that 
this style of praising is half daft on the part of the 
Society. No matter how well it may 44 decorate ” any 
one of their Council, depend upon it. that is not the 
right way to force flowers for a royal wedding; and 
if I were you. I would “ drop it " from the marriage of 
the Princess Royal. Whatever I did. 44 between you 
and me.” I should take good care that 4 * they ” should 
never hear of it. Also, were it not for a peg on which 
to hangup that advice, the readers of The Cottage 
Gardener would never have heard who first set going 
the collections of rare, variegated, and fine-leaved 
plants. 
But give the ladies one single lift in your next 
schedule of prizes, and offer something better than 
** artificial flowers' at the next Princess’s wedding : 
and I am your man Friday “to order.” The ladies 
speak to me about these things. I have heard more 
about forcing flowers this winter, than I did since I 
threw up the ace of spades. 
A lazy, who spent the last winter and spring in 
Portugal, told me the other day that they have groves 
there of the Paulotcn \a imperial is, and that the trees 
are as large as our best Horse Chestnuts; that they 
flower exactly like these Chestnuts: that the flower- 
spikes are from twelve inches to eighteen inches long ; 
and that the individual flowers are as large as Gloxinia 
flowers, and very much like the old blue Gloxinia 
flower in colour. The trees keep in bloom from 
February till May : so that they flower three months 
earlier in Portugal than they do in England. Another 
lady will he answered, by saying there is nothing 
singular in these Paulownias showing their flower- 
buds in England as early as October ; nor in the fact, 
that if the frost could be kept from these buds, and 
from the young wood under the flower-spikes, the 
plants, or trees, could flower with us towards the end 
of April. There were three distinct kinds of the 
Buyai ivUusa rpectabilis in bloom there at the same 
rime as the Paulownia: the plants were merely trained 
against the walls, without any other protection. 
W e were already aware of the existence of these three 
kinds of Bugainvillaas in Brazil, from Gardener’s 
travels; for he mentions the three growing in the 
forest on the east side of the bay opposite the town of 
Rio : but this is the first time we have heard of them 
blooming in Europe. Specfabilis itself has a deep 
crimson co-lour under the Portugal sun : the next kind 
is bright pink : and the third, “ a most lovely violet 
blue.” The descriptions are from one of our first 
flower-gardeners among the ladies ; therefore, more 
true, and more to be relied on. than if we heard of 
them in books of science. The only plant of Bagain- 
vill&a that we heard of in The Cottage Gaedevee. 
as flowering in England, is that which is mentioned 
in our eighteenth volume, page 54. at Cardington, 
near Bedford. It was kept five years in an inter¬ 
mediate temperature between a greenhouse and a 
stove ; and for the last two years it was kept cramped 
in the same pot which Mr. McLaren, the gardener, 
believed to have been the cause of making it flower; 
and of that there can be no doubt. It blooms mag¬ 
nificently in Paris every year, and is a “ lion ” there ; 
■ 
