THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, June 29, 1858. 
186 
beddgrs, as the “ seedlings come out,” is turned right 
round, and a mischievous cloak is given to ignorance, 
or to ignorant people, and to people who are not at all 
ignorant, but take this very cloak, and under its ample 
folds will cheat and chisel every mortal being who 
i deals with them; and, last of all, they are on the 
broad way to perdition, and the flower shows are some 
of the gradients which accelerate their final doom. 
Bedding plants are bedding plants, and when a 
man or woman plants them out they are done with, 
j as far as the art of cultivation is concerned; and, 
before they are planted out, the great art and mystery 
of their management, is to keep them, as much as 
possible, from all the influences which govern that 
same art of cultivation. Why then give prizes for 
bedding plants, under the stimulus of good cultiva¬ 
tion P Why, indeed ? But that is the question ; the 
answer to it is this :—So many people go the wrong 
w r ay to work, that the rest cannot help themselves, till 
time, which reveals most things, shows clearly enough, 
that these people began at the wrong end of the book, 
reading backwards, till they came to the preface and 
dedication, and then found out what the book was all 
about. Doctor Lindley grafted the wrong end of this 
stock, certainly, in the Chiswick Garden. I began 
to read his book, on “ Prizes for Bedding Plants,” at 
finis , and read on for twelve or fourteen years ; I 
only got to the preface this hot summer, and then I 
could see what it was all about. In the first place, it 
was not worth a single straw for the improvement of 
our art; and, in the second place, it could not, and 
never did advance, or improve, the looks or character 
of a single flower-bed; and for this reason, that beds 
are never filled with “ specimen ” plants, or plants 
which went through the regular stages of cultivation, 
such as is given to specimen plants, or exhibition 
plants ; and, thirdly, and worse than all, this stimu¬ 
lating degree of cultivation, which is never required in 
practice, and is not an improvement on the flower-bed, 
has enabled the ignorant and the cheat to defraud the 
public alike. But it must not be so ; your clever fool 
who believes his own eyes, thinks that, because he 
lias spent a great deal of time and ingenuity, to bring 
a new Verbena, or any other bedding plant to a fine 
state of bloom, it is really a first-rate thing for a bed, 
and sells it as such, and next season it may turn out to 
j be fit for nothing. Then comes the cheat, the rogue, and 
the actual swindler, with their batches of seedlings,— 
not worth a penny the thousand, but add a little more 
to the cost of rearing them,—who grow them well, ex¬ 
hibit the good growth, get a name, advertise, and shame 
the devil for brass and impudence. And we have to 
account for all this wickedness, disappointment, and 
bad luck, by paying “the little more” in the shape 
of prize money. Therefore, no prize should ever be 
given to any kind of bedding plant, in respect to the 
degree of cultivation which may have been bestowed 
upon it, beyond what is requisite to make it fit for the 
bed at the fitting time. 
The true way to encourage the style and improve¬ 
ment of bedding plants, as I have just found out, on 
reading back to the preface to the worthy Doctor’s 
book of prizes, is to give the prizes to the beds instead 
of to individual plants. But who could bring flower-beds 
to a show ? The man is daft, the hot weather has done it 
all, and lie is crazy. But in the olden times, you could 
not get at the truth, but through the “ daft body,” 
the family fool; and there is no more trouble in bring¬ 
ing all your beds to the shows than there is bringing 
up your drawing-rooms, conservatories, show-houses, 
pits, frames, and forcing-houses ; and every one of 
these structures, are now being represented at every 
one of the shows round London. A full-grown Wel¬ 
lington} a. could not be taken to a show, nor yet a 
Pibston Pippin tree in good bearing; but perfect 
specimens of each, that is, a specimen of the thing for 
which we grow such plants, can easily be exhibited, 
and answer all the purposes for which we intend prizes. 
A specimen of the best circular bed may be given in 
a vase. Another specimen of your choicest oblong 
bed is the plant box on the window-sill;—artificers 
will make any form of bed into a comfortable size for 
travelling;—then plant your new bedding plants in 
these cases, as you now do in pots, turn out such cases 
at the end of May, and do nothing more to the plants 
than what they would need in a bed, to keep it tidy 
and in good health and bloom. Then, and not till then, 
will the true character of bedding plants, and plant- 
men in that line, be made known at the shows, and 
dealt with accordingly. 
Scarlet Geraniums, of all other plants, are the worst 
to be met with at the shows, because they are seen 
under a false system, under pot culture, as compared 
in our mind, against bedding growth. I never yet 
saw a full satisfactory plant of any of the Scarlet race 
at an exhibition. The best I saw were some Tom 
Thumbs, which Mr. Edwards, the great florist, ex¬ 
hibited at the Regent’s Park, some five or six years 
back ; but, by growing these Scarlets in very rich soil, 
by training, and by all the indulgences known to the 
specimen cultivator, a poor, Happy, and good-for- 
nothing kind, may be made to look as well as the best 
of them, for a few days or weeks, so as to pass for a 
first-rate thing from the last May show to the first 
show in July ; and, by getting a name, is ready to be 
palmed on the public as a substantial bedding kind. 
But, of all the modes, that of exhibiting cut flowers 
of bedding plants is the most to be dreaded. Never 
allow your better judgment to buy a bedding plant 
from seeing cut flowers of it only, because that is, of 
all kinds of deception, the greatest, without even any 
intention of deceiving. They put up half-a-dozen 
heads of one kind of Yerbena into one truss. I 
People, who would not eat fat pork, will buy these Ver¬ 
benas, because they, the Verbenas, look as rich and 
fat as streaky bacon, and as tempting to the sight. 
And, lastly, the most awful style of cheating witli 
bedding plants, is that by which they are sold in 
“collections.” If the seller has a spark of the old 
Adam about him, here is just where it is most likely 
to get into a blaze. He, the all but honest man, lias 
two good seedlings, out of 2000 bad ones ; and the 
public is so stingy, that he cannot repay half his ex¬ 
penses by all he could get for his stock of the two 
good kinds. Then the author of all evil suggests to 
him the numbers of mankind who like fat pork, with- j 
out knowing it,—great bargains will catch any one of j 
that number: put up ten of your bad ones, any ten 
will do, with each pair of your good ones, call the lot 
a “ collection,” give it cheap, and you may net more 
than will fill your boat. 
The best men of the day deal in these collections, 
because they cannot help doing so ; it is the fashion ; 
and the fashion began, like prizes for the best-grown 
bedding plants, with the best intentions. The con¬ 
tinental florists began it first; they found out that not j 
more than a tenth part of their seedlings were valued j 
here, and that not so many of our best seedlings suited ; 
t forei & n taste ; so they put them in the lump, trust¬ 
ing that so many of them would “take” here, and 
pay for the rest. But their troubles and ours began 
from that time. Mr. A., in London, orders a “ col¬ 
lection ” of Mr. B., in Paris, and, after propagating 
scores of each kind, finds that not more than a tithe | 
of them is suited to his customers. B. goes through 
the same routine, and ends with a similar disappoint¬ 
ment. Both grumble, and both go at it again and | 
again, and grumble as loud as ever; and rascality i 
