374 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, September 14, 1858. 
opened, at the west eud, with a magnificent display 
of the finest of that race, from Mr. Standish; and one 
could hardly get near them the whole day, for the 
crowds, who justly admired them. There were three 
long rows of them, and seventeen or eighteen bunches 
in each row, and from one to four or five spikes of 
bloom in a bunch. They are of the new breed, between 
psittacinus or Natalensis and oppositijlorus, and they 
are not registered properly in any catalogue, English 
or foreign, that I have ever seen. With us they are 
put down as Gandavensis seedlings, or breed, or, at 
best, as the breed from Rcimosus and Gandavensis. 
That is to say, beginning from the second generation 
instead of from the type. Ramosus was the first best 
seedling from oppositijlorus , alias grandiflorus of the 
shops, and Gandavensis was the first of the long-looked- j 
for strain from psittacinus, which strain baffled the 
cross-breeders of Europe for ten or a dozen years,—I 
was one of them the whole time,—and was obtained 
at last in Australia,— Gandavensis being the Australian 
seedling. This new strain does not ripen its leaves 
till the end of the autumn, and requires a winter’s rest 
in a dry state, and not to be planted out, in England, 
till the end of April. 
After the Gladioli from the south, came the French 
and German Asters, the first tasselled, and the second 
quilled flowers ; then the Dahlias, with the Holly¬ 
hocks behind them, on one side of the way; and, on 
the opposite side, the Fuchsias, Lilies, and Balsams. 
Each of these divisions occupied about eighteen 
yards. 
The next division was forty yards of fruit,—all cut 
fruit and dished,—on a double stand along the centre 
of the way; and this ended the south nave. 
The stove and greenhouse collections, and the varie¬ 
gated and fine-leaved collections of ditto, were most 
artistically arranged in half-moon groups at the four 
corners, where the naves meet the great central tran¬ 
sept ; and under the great Handel organ stood a long 
table, the width of the place, for the collections of 
Pears and Apples,—the table being loaded with such 
fruit as was never before seen in quantity and quality, 
except once at Willis’s Rooms. 
In the north nave,—another stand of fruit to match 
that just named,—the top shelf was filled from end to 
end with Peach, Nectarine, and Plum trees, in pots, 
orchard-house fashion ,* and two shelves, on each side 
below the trees, were loaded with single dishes of 
Grapes, Pines, Peaches, Nectarines, Apricots, Figs, 
Plums, Cherries, Nuts and Filberts, Currants, Oranges 
and Citrons, and, for the first time in Europe, a 
splendid dish of twelve Mangoes, the fruit of Mangi - 
fera Indica, the finest fruit in the world, which looks 
of the shape of Magnum Ronum Plums, and as large 
as middle-sized Pears,—the colour purple and yellow. 
These came from Leigh Park, the seat of Sir George 
Staunton, ^Bart. Mr. Scott, who began his career j 
vith Dr. Aedl, in Edinburgh, and who there flowered 
Claricia pulchella for the first time in Europe, has 
been gardener at Leigh Park, I should think, more 
than twenty years, and he looks now as young as 
when he left us in Edinburgh, in 1828. 
j I counted twenty-one dishes of Cherries and twenty- 
five of Figs; the rest were so numerous, I could not 
count them. After the fruit, were two divisions of 
Orchids, Ferns, Lycopods, and Pitcher Plants, on the 
. ol the way, and opposite as much space with 
c<u let Geraniums : then hosts of miscellanies on each 
side to the bronze fountain. The whole was most skil- 
T, A placed effect. Y erily, the Crystal Palace people 
will m time open the eyes of the natives, to see, to 
learn, and to appreciate the immense value of system 
and systematical arrangements ; but there is no other 
place m England where flowers and fruits could be 
set off to the same advantage. As to the croakers, 
who predicted the absolute unfitness of the Crystal 
Palace for Flower Shows, they have been buried in 
the very mud from which they sent forth their hideous 
howl. 
The greatest triumph of skill and industry was in 
the growth of the Saginellas, or Lycopods. Nothing 
approaching their genuine loveliness was ever seen 
before, in the variety and splendour of the new race 
of Gladiolus, and in a natural, or most unnatural leap 
in the growth and size of the common Coxcomb, by 
Mr. Savage, gardener to Miss Guilloneau, Lower Ed¬ 
monton. He had two collections of them, one for ex¬ 
hibition and the other for show; but his second best 
would beat all the Combs, since Mr. Knight, of 
Don nton Castle, exemplified the scientific bearing of 
this kind of work, in his huge Coxcomb, a drawing of 
which hangs up in the Horticultural Society’s Rooms, 
in Regent Street. Talk about Coxcombs, where there 
are, alas ! too many of them already, and you will see 
their noses twisting as if they were smelling a fox. 
But had you seen Sir Joseph Paxton, and six of the 
best gardeners in England, discussing the probable 
effects of such an exhibition of Coxcombs, you would 
understand how they appreciate the value of a know¬ 
ledge of common things, which was the great secret 
of their own individual success in life. These are the 
stamp of men to teach the gardening world how it 
should move on its own axis, without being attracted 
by one and repulsed by another body, in and from a 
different atmosphere. 
As to the Dahlias, Asters, and Hollyhocks, you 
could not get near them after the public got in. The 
Japan Lilies were better done than ever, and more 
numerous.. The Fuchsias were just as usual, except 
one collection, which was very superior to the general 
run, the premier plant in it being the Marquis of 
Bristol, the best double Fuchsia out. I never heard 
of it bciore, but there it was, and was of the strain of 
globosa major, and a magnificent thing. 
Scarlet Geraniums were better than ever; but 
there mus a great deal of roguery in the potting of 
three, five, or more plants in one pot, to make people 
believe it one specimen. I got the names of all the 
kinds, and the parties ; but I shall keep them in pencil 
notes, till I am required to prove or eat my own words, 
or rather to be the wedge with which to split this 
part of exhibitions to splinters. 
The cut Roses were just as good, and as numerous, 
us wc sec them m June. Some of the Balsams were 
very good, and some very bad indeed: the cottagers’ 
collections looked much more like practical gardening 
than some which figured in the miscellaneous groups 
of their betters. 1 
There will be some chancery suits, if not actual 
duels, among the collections of fruit exhibitors. Some 
ot them are getting outrageously out of schedule. For 
ten dishes they exhibit twelve, and for twelve fruit in I 
a dish will put in eighteen, or twenty, or even two j 
dozen. I do not know whether the government that 
appoints the Judges be Whig, Tory, or Radical, but 
tins 1 do know, that if the fruit Judges, and the Judges 
on florists things, do not do better than was done that 
( 4 shall have to issue the law on the matter, more 
cleaily, and more to the point, than was done by any 
ot my predecessors on the woolsack. There was a 
most scandalous departure from fairplay in the fruit | 
and florist awards, and I warn the authorities of the ; 
Crystal Palace to look to it. It must have been glar¬ 
ing before I would notice it, as I make a point of pre¬ 
tending not to know the merits of awards at all. But 
roguery, or incompetence, in the Judges will soon put 
down the value of flower shows. There is not a man 
who knows the spirit of the thing better than I do. I 
