892 
THE GARDENING WORLD 
February 18, 1888. 
green colour of these enhancing the beauty of the 
flowers. 
The next subject which claims our attention is of a 
herbaceous character, and is called Iris reticulata. This 
little gem might with great propriety be named 
“speciosa,” on account of the brightness and beauty 
of its flowers, which are deep purple-violet, about 2 ins. 
long in the limb, and 2 ins. to 3 ins. long in the tube, 
and very showy. The leaves are linear in form, and 
about as high as the flowers ; the height of this little 
Flag is 6 ins. In writing about hardy flowers, which 
have a tendency to develop their blooms so early, the 
Cyclamen must not be overlooked. Everybody has seen 
the greenhouse species of this interesting family, but 
comparatively few have had the good fortune to gaze 
upon a well-grown pan of Cyclamen Atkinsi. This 
and another, designated Ibericum, were in excellent 
form, and well worth the attention of lovers of this 
genus. And, moreover, what is also of some importance, 
the foliage is contemporaneous with the flowers, and is 
in itself highly ornamental, being firm in build, and 
distinctly marbled with white. 
Corydalis Ledebouriana (Ledebour’s Fumitory) is 
very striking, producing its curious pinkish blossoms in 
great abundance. Add to this its much-divided 
glaucous green foliage, and you have a gem of the first 
water. Last but not least, except in point of size, is 
he lovely Alpine Moneywort- (Soldanella alpina), a 
charming little plant, and closely allied to the extensive 
genus Primula ; its specific name has reference to the 
leaves, which are roundish and money-like, and pro¬ 
duced in dark green clusters. These, together with 
the numerous stems which support several drooping 
bell-shaped blue flowers, beautifully fringed, render the 
plant a desideratum in a collection of choice hardy 
flowers.— C. B. Green, Acton, JV. 
-- 
GARDENERS’ TRIALS AND 
DIFFICULTIES. 
Having read the paper “From Apprentice to Master,” 
published recently in your columns, I entirely agree 
with the writer, and cannot but wish that he had given 
Us a few hints on the employer’s duty to the head 
gardener, though I am afraid that is such a delicate 
subject as to require very careful handling in order to 
bring about any improvement in their condition and 
position. As a class, they are about the worst re¬ 
munerated for their labour, and yet they are expected 
to have gone through all the preparatory training so 
well put forth in the above-mentioned paper. In a 
great number of the places vacant for gardeners now¬ 
adays, they can also employ the wife, to take charge of 
the laundry, dairy, poultry, or to assist in house, &c., 
coming in her category of required capabilities, and all 
for the handsome remuneration not exceeding, if equal 
to, that earned by a bricklayer’s labourer. 
Head gardeners are, unfortunately, too thick on the 
ground; if a situation is advertised applicants are 
overwhelming. I heard of a nobleman’s place being 
advertised ; the wages were a trifle more than 30s. per 
week, with house, and there were over 200 applicants ! 
There are two classes of gardeners—those who have 
been trained “from apprentice to master,” and those 
who, having failed in some other calling, have taken to 
gardening, and—as I once heard a nurseryman remark— 
consider themselves gardeners because they have wheeled 
a barrowful of manure to a Cucumber bed. Of course, 
these latter craftsmen are quite good enough for some 
places, but we frequently find them out of their 
latitude. They, as it were, “trim their boat and sit 
quiet,” having it in their power to engage good hands 
to keep them from rolling, but very often we find them 
the most arbitrary of captains. 
Apprentices do not always make the best use of their 
time or opportunities ; though, perhaps, it may be 
that they do not always have the chance given to 
them. I knew one that used to boast about paying 
£20 for three years, at an establishment where they 
had something like twenty glass structures ; but he 
did not know the Hepatica, or how to strike Vine eyes. 
He did manage to strike some Dahlia cuttings, and 
when they were, getting nice stuff topped them ! yet this 
worthy emanated from his apprentice ground as 
foreman ! 
A great many follow the profession because their 
fathers are gardeners. They are bred and born in the 
line, and as youngsters grow to have a love for the 
gentle art. They may have the choice of other pro¬ 
fessions given them, and they very probably often wish 
when too late that they had taken to something else ; 
for a young mechanic at twenty-one can claim equality 
with his fellows, but the young gardener has to be 
knocking about from pillar to post for another ten 
years before he can obtain a head place, and then, 
perhaps, not get a mechanic’s wage. The golden 
age for a gardener is from thirty to forty—if under he 
is told he is too young, if over, too old ; and as gar¬ 
deners are such birds of passage, I would suggest that 
it ought to become a rule for an employer to furnish 
the gardener’s residences, so that, married or single, 
when leaving a situation, he would only have his 
portmanteau to remove, and not a houseful of furniture 
to drag to metropolitan apartments adjacent to the 
gardeners’ asylum—a London nursery. 
In the proposals for resuscitating the Royal 
Horticultural Society published in a contemporary 
the other week, a noted practitioner suggests that it is 
desirable to secure the “sympathy and support of 
practical gardeners,” and makes the proposition to 
“confer upon a limited number of the leading gardeners 
throughout the country the honour of associate of the 
R. H. S.but he adds that among “gardener’s names 
which occur in garden directories there are men of 
various degrees of ability,” and further purposes to 
confer the distinction on “those gardeners who have 
attained to a considerable degree of eminence in their 
profession.” To these proposals a writer makes the 
very sensible reply, ‘ 1 that the eminence attained to is 
in a great measure reflected from his employers coffers.” 
That is so ; the prizes in the horticultural world are 
similar to those in other professions, it is not always 
a man’s ability that lands him into position, it is more 
often influence ; a great many good men are under the 
absolute necessity of working under disadvantages, 
their light is hidden under a bushel, they never 
probably have the opportunity to make their names 
famous, therefore, do not reach that goal—“eminence 
in their profession.” 
It is a saying that “everything comes to a man who 
waits ' ; but I am afraid a good many gardeners find 
in the twilight of their career that they have been as it 
were looking for the “Philosopher’s stone.”— Path¬ 
finder. __ 
GARDENING NOTES FROM 
AMERICA. 
The Society of American Florists has done 
wonders. It has brought together the florists from 
every corner of the country, and, through its conven¬ 
tions and printed proceedings, distributed a vast deal 
of knowledge and goodwill, while it has introduced a 
wide-awake progressive spirit among our florists. The 
membership fee is S2 yearly. While you pay you are 
a member, when your payments cease your member¬ 
ship ceases. There is no initiation fee, anyone who 
pays $2 can become a member ; and I hope it may 
always continue in this way. Handicapped by 
voluminous rules and regulations, bye-laws, restric¬ 
tions, and “bosses,” this society could not continue to 
be the popular one it now is. 
A Florists’ Club has sprung up since a year or so 
in almost every large city in the country. What the 
national society is on a large scale, these local clubs 
are on a lesser one, and are independent of the horti¬ 
cultural societies. 
The Cut-Flower Business is enormous, but the 
supply exceeds the demand ; hence prices rule very 
low. Roses are very plentiful this winter, and, coupled 
with Carnations, hold a leading place ; but Poinsettias, 
Roman Hyacinths, Tulips, Freesias, and other flowers 
in their season are furnished in immense quantities. 
Orchids are becoming fashionable, and there is 
a fair demand at good prices. Some of our florists 
grow them in vast quantity, and they have mostly 
every species and variety worth growing for winter 
flowers. Siebreclit and Wadley have almost a village 
of glasshouses filled with Orchids—of Cattleyas alone 
they have thousands upon thousands. De Forest, 
Bush, Breckenridge, Saul, Mathews, and other florists 
have immense collections, while almost every florist 
has a few. Private collections are also quite numerous, 
some of them—for instance, Messrs. Ames’, Coming’s, 
and Kimball’s—being very complete. Mr. Pitcher, of 
Hew Jersey, has, within a year or two, also entered 
largely into Orchid growing, and has an exceptionally 
rich collection of Cypripediums. Mr. Manda, the 
gardener at the Botanic Garden, Cambridge, tells me 
that he himself has the largest collection of Cypri¬ 
pediums in the country ; but since I was there last 
autumn he writes me that he has built a greenhouse of 
his own on neighbouring land, and removed thither 
all of his own Orchids from the Botanic Garden. 
Chrysanthemums are exceedingly popular here, 
and all over the country we have our Hovember 
exhibitions, just as you have in England, and grow 
some capital plants. Multitudes of cut flowers on 
exhibition last year were over 7 ins. across, Robert 
Bottomly measuring 8 ins. The plants ripen any 
quantity of seed, consequently we all raise numbers 
of seedlings ; but those of Chrysanthemums, no matter 
what their parents may have been, are often a woeful 
lot. True, w’e get some beauties sometimes. In order 
that the flowers can be more easily fertilised, we clip 
the petals short with the shears, and then trust to 
nature or a camel’s-hair brush. Most of the seeds are 
ripe and gathered before Christmas. They germinate 
in eight or nine days, and if raised in February they 
bloom the following Hovember. 
Aquatics. —Within the last six years Lily ponds 
have become a desirable adjunct to prominent public 
and private gardens. The Lilies are kept in the green¬ 
houses during winter, and planted into the little ponds 
in summer. A bed of this sort in one of the public 
squares in the middle of Hew York city last summer 
attracted a great deal of attention. All day long a 
group of admiring people stood near that basin, and 
after dark, too, when the night-blooming Hymphteas 
were in flower. 
The Horticultural Press is well represented by 
several excellent monthlies. The American Garden is 
a well-conducted practical paper, with artistic finish. 
A little while ago it bought up the Ladies' Flcral 
Cabinet, and now it has also purchased the Gardeners' 
Monthly, and united them with itself. For many 
years the latter was the leading gardening paper of 
America, and its accomplished editor, Professor Thomas 
Meehan, has a world-wide fame as one of our most 
eminent botanists. Popular Gardening is the work of 
one of our brightest, most vigorous, and practical 
horticulturists, dealing with almost every department in 
gardening ; and it is wonderful the large amount of 
solid, pointed, and condensed matter its pages contain. 
By purchase it has also acquired five other gardening 
papers, and combined them with itself. The American 
Florist is a semi-monthly and a commercial florists’ 
paper only. It is a bright and prosperous publication, 
much appreciated by the trade, and has already done a 
vast amount of good. We also have Orchard and 
Garden, and some other good papers. Besides, every 
agricultural paper throughout the country is more or 
less a horticultural publication. 
But all eyes are just now looking forward with much 
expectation to Garden and Forest, a new weekly paper 
which will appear in the second week in February. 
It is under the direction of Professor C. S. Sargent, 
director of the Arnold Arboretum, with Mr. W. A. Styles, 
late of the Philadelphia Press as managing editor, and 
Mr. D. A. Munro, late of Harper’s, as publisher. 
Of Gardeners the supply here exceeds the demand. 
European gardeners who come to this country are, for 
the most part, strictly greenhouse men. This is unfor¬ 
tunate for themselves, for the man with a practical know¬ 
ledge of trees, shrubs, lawn making, road making, grading, 
and laying-out places, also with some practical idea of 
farming is the man most needed and best paid here. 
So far as outdoor fruit and vegetable growing are con¬ 
cerned, our native Americans are, as a rule, more 
successful than European immigrants. In Europe 
when a man gets a good situation as head gardener he 
considers himself settled for life ; here it is different, 
gardeners generally stay in their situations till they 
have saved up a few hundreds of dollars, and then 
start into business on their own account as florists. 
Ho gardener need come here with the idea of leading 
an easy “high-toned” life; here, we are all working 
men, and earn our bread by the sweat of our brow. 
The consequential “master” gardener of Europe is, 
thank heaven, unknown in this broad democratic land. 
Some prominent horticultural American gentlemen, 
who visited Europe last summer, say that the parks 
and gardens of Berlin are the finest they have seen any¬ 
where ; also that the Italian gardens are lovely, and 
the French gardening better than the English. This 
applies to outdoor gardening and public parks only. 
They consider that the English gardeners scatter 
flower-beds about too promiscuously. They were most 
agreeably surprised with Spilth’s Hurseries at Berlin, 
and speak of them as containing a more numerous 
assortment of hardy trees and shrubs than they found 
iu any other commercial establishment that they visited. 
Horticultural Taste is spreading here, and that 
too in its most beautiful phases. Glaring patches of 
colour and crazy-quilt designs are, with refined educated 
people, objects of ridicule. They want broad unbroken 
lawns, handsome shrubs, graceful trees, umbrageous 
specimens, and harmonising groups ; they want land¬ 
scape gems.— X., New York, Jan. 30th. 
