April 28, 1888. 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
547 
WEBBS 
SPECIAL 
LAWN SEEDS 
Rapidly produce the best and most enduring 
turf for Tennis Grounds and Ornamental 
Gardening. 
"Webbs’ Best Mixtures ... Is. 3d. per lb. 
Webbs’ Ordinary Mixtures Is. Qd. per lb. 
Illustrated Catalogue, Is. Abridged Edition Gratis. 
THE QUEEN’S SEEDSMEN, 
WORDSLEY, STOURBRIDGE, 
Gold Medal 
Liverpool 
1886. 
The Medals 
of Paris 
1878. 
PANSIES 
FOR 
EXHIBITION, 
ALSO 
VIOLAS. 
F OR beauty of form and novelty of colours 
they are not equalled by any Collection that is offered for 
sale. My customers may rely upon receiving none but the best, 
as I grow only quality, not quantity, at moderate prices. In¬ 
spection invited during the blooming season. 
CATALOGUES FREE. 
(Of the late Firm of DOWNIE & LAIRD), 
BEECH HILL, MURRAYFIELD, 
EDINBURGH. 
SPECIAL CULTURE OF 
FRUIT TREES AND ROSES. 
A Large and Select Stock is now offered for Sale. 
The Illustrated and Descriptive Catalogue of Fruits 
Post Free. 
The Descriptive Catalogue of Roses Post Free. 
THOMAS RIYERS & SON, 
HURSERIES, SA WBRIDGEWORTH, HERTS, 
ORCHIDS A SPECIALTY. 
The Stock at the Clapton Nursery is of such magnitude that 
without seeing it it is not easy to form an adequate conception 
of its unprecedented extent. General Nursery Stock of fine 
quality and immense extent. Inspection invited. The Glass 
Structures cover an area of 297,300 ft. 
HUGH £0W & CO,, 
CLAPTON NURSERY, LONDON, E. 
VEGETABLE, FLOWER AND FARM, 
©asefslly §el©et©d!, 
AND FROM WHICH MAY BE EXPECTED 
THE BEST RESU LTS 
EVER YET ATTAINED. 
ILLUSTRATED LIST, 
Containing Copious, Interesting, and Reliable In¬ 
formation, Free. 
RICHARD SMITH & Go., 
SEED MERCHANTS AND NURSERYMEN, 
WORCESTER. 
CARTERS' 
I NYICTA 
LAWN SEEDS 
Should now lt>e Sown. 
Bushel. lb. 
For YELVET LAWNS - - 25/- 1/3. 
For TENNIS LAWNS - - 20/- I/O. 
For CRICKET GROUNDS - 20/- I/O. 
For MENDING OLD LAWNS- 25/- 1/3. 
_ All Parcels Carriage Free, _ 
Royal Seedsmen by Sealed Warrants. 
237 & 238, HIGH HOLBORN. LONDON- 
R OYAL BOTANICAL and HORTICUL¬ 
TURAL SOCIETY of MANCHESTER. 
The NEST FLORAL EXHIBITION will be held in the Town 
Hall, Manchester, TUESDAY, May 1st. 
The GRAND NATIONAL HORTICULTURAL EXHIBITION 
of 1SSS (ONE THOUSAND POUNDS in PRIZES) will open on 
MAY ISth. For Schedules apply to the undersigned, 
BRUCE FINLAY, Royal Botanic Gardens, Manchester. 
Next Week's Engagements. 
Monday, April 30th.—Sale of Imported Orchids at Protheroe & 
Morris's Rooms. 
Tuesday, May 1st.—Floral Exhibition in Town Hall, Manchester. 
Sale of the Brentliam Park collection of Orchids at Protheroe 
& Morris's Rooms (2 days). Sale of Greenhouse and Stove 
Plants at the Harlesden Park Nursery, N.W., by Protheroa 
& Morris. 
Thursday, May 3rd.—Sale of Established Orchids, from the col 
lection of C. Walker, Esq., at Stevens’ Rooms. 
Friday, May 4th.—Sale of Imported Orchids at Protheroe & 
Morris’s Rooms. 
FOR INDEX TO CONTENTS, SEE P. 558. 
“ Gardening is the purest of human pleasures, and the greatest 
refreshment to the spirit of man.”— Bacon. 
SATURDAY, APRIL 28, 1888. 
Polyanthuses.— The somewhat intermittent 
and exceptional interest in the meetings of 
the Royal Horticultural Society, which the 
annual gathering of the National Auricula 
Society provoked on Tuesday last, must he 
placed to the credit of the two or three old- 
fashioned and favourite florists’ flowers asso¬ 
ciated with this latter body’s work. As long 
as gardening exists we shall grow Auriculas, 
Polyanthuses, and Primroses; not alone be¬ 
cause they are esteemed florists’ flowers—not 
even alone because they are spring flowers, 
but for their exceeding beauty, and for that 
innate love for them which seems ever to 
cluster about old-fashioned flowers. But 
whilst the true show or exhibition Auricula 
is, in spite of the fact that the plants are 
hardy, anything but an ordinary out-door or 
border denizen, and will only evolve its com¬ 
plex and remarkable beauties under glass, 
we have myriads of hardy border forms, 
sturdy of growth and varied in flower; even 
when out of flower they look green and 
vigorous through the frosts of winter and 
under the burning sun of summer. It is an 
undoubted fact that the ordinary border Auricula 
takes rank amongst the hardiest of plants, 
submitting alike to frost, snow, excessive wet 
or burning sunshine with remarkable indiffer¬ 
ence and equanimity. Thus we may have 
Auriculas of some sort, and of their sort very 
beautiful too, in all our gardens, even though 
the patient and enthusiastic florist can only 
produce his gems for exhibition under that 
shelter which glass-houses now so abundantly 
affords. 
But Polyanthuses are much less amenable 
to house culture than are Auriculas, and even 
seem impatient in frames where, on a cool 
bottom and near the glass, they seem to find all 
that art can give to meet their requirements. 
Without doubt it is only when these are pro¬ 
duced under glass that we see the singularly 
pleasing and refined properties of a good 
gold-laced Polyanthus flower in perfect 
beauty, hut the plants all the same soon 
become impatient of housing after the blooms 
are open, and will draw rapidly. If these 
gold-laced forms are hardly so robust as we 
could wish, it may he pleaded that for a 
long series of years they have been treated to 
pot culture, and whatever their inherent 
constitution, generations of division and pot 
growth can hardly help to render that 
constitution more robust; therefore, if we 
wish to have the best of the gold-laced 
section—the very aristocracy of their race, 
we must be content to treat them as favoured 
children of fortune, and give them all the con¬ 
sideration which their high breeding demands. 
As one result of this high breeding we 
find it exceedingly difficult to obtain progeny 
which at all equals in quality the older 
varieties. Tens of thousands of seedlings 
may he raised—and those happily out-doors, 
for the open air presents the best place in 
which seedlings may develop their character¬ 
istics—and of all that number, raised from 
the best of strains, not one, very probably, 
will approach in excellence to the high merits 
of the parents, assuming these to have been 
of the best named sorts. Such a result is 
hardly encouraging, and, indeed, is very 
disappointing, especially as gold-laced Poly¬ 
anthuses make but an indifferent show in 
garden borders, compared with what the fancy 
or fine self varieties produce. The barrenness 
which results from seedlings of the gold- 
laced forms is, however, less due to the fact 
that fairly good flowers may not be plentiful, 
than that the old named forms have created 
a high standard of refinement, below which 
no others can well receive recognition. 
Varieties like Cheshire Favourite and Exile 
are the products of generations, and they serve 
to create standards of excellence, even if 
florist’s rules and ideals had never existed. 
Let anyone take flowers of these beautiful 
kinds in their hand, and with them go over 
ten thousands of seedlings and note how far 
the new progeny gives the refined points 
which the older sorts present. If any seed¬ 
lings should approximate, it will he good; 
if it equal, it will he first-class; if it excel, 
it will be a wonder. Let the eye alight, for 
instance, upon a perfectly laced flower, and it 
will assuredly be found to have a dull centre 
or a fine eye. Possibly the ground, which 
should he dense and well defined, will be 
thin and irregular; or perhaps a flower showing 
the thrum and centre in the most promising- 
aspect, has a poor ground and uneven lacing. 
Possibly the thrum, centre, ground, and 
lacing may he good, but the latter refuses 
to cut clean through, and that is a fatal 
objection, and one no after-culture can cure. 
The round and well-balanced thrum, the clear 
yellow rounded centre, dense ground, and 
clearly cut lacing of exactly the same hue of 
yellow as is the centre, are features all too 
seldom found in any one flower. 
Probably no florists’ flower, not oven the 
wondrously constructed edged Auricula, presents 
more marked evidence of perfection in all 
points than is found in a first-class gold-laced 
Polyanthus. Whilst the difficulties which gold- 
laced Polyanthus production and culture thus 
present, check popularity appreciably, there 
is no -want of it in relation to the very 
beautiful and attractive forms found in the 
border or fancy section. This class is a long 
way superior to the old strains formerly 
grown in garden borders, the plants being- 
more robust, the flowers much larger and far- 
more richly coloured; indeed, a well-filled 
bed of these fine fancy forms, of no matter 
what hues of colour, offers one of the most 
