August 25, 1888. 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
819 
R oyal horticultural society. 
Patron : Her Majesty The Queen. 
President: Sir Trevor Lawrence, Bart., M.P. 
Offices : 111, Victoria Street, S.W. 
ATOTICE! The next meeting of the Fruit 
and Floral Committees will be held in the Drill Hall of 
the London Scottish Rifle Volunteers, James Street, S.W., on 
Tuesday, August 2Sth, when the special subjects invited for 
exhibition will be Hollyhocks, Gladioli, &e. 
Open to Fellows at 12 o’clock, and to the public at 1 p.tn. 
For particulars respecting the election of Fellows apply to the 
Secretary, 111, Victoria Street, S.W. _ 
National Chrysanthemum. Society, Royal 
Aquarium, Westminster. 
E arly chrysanthemum & dahlia 
EXHIBITION", Sept. 12tli and 13th. Schedules free on 
application. 
The Floial Committee will meet Sept. 12th, Oct. 10th and 24th, 
Nov. 7th and 21st, Dec. 5th, and Jan. 9th. 
WILLIAM HOLMES, Hon. Sec. 
Frampton Park Nurseries, Hackney, E. 
PLEASE NOTE.—Intending members should join at once, and 
so secure the full advantages for. the current season-viz., 
Admission to Four Grand Exhibitions and Seven Floral Meet¬ 
ings, also the usual privileges. Ordinary Member 5?., and 
Fellows 21s. per annum. 
Bromley Chrysanthemum Society. 
nntIE seventh annual exhibition 
i of this Society will be held on November 14tli and 15th. 
Schedules of Prizes and other information may be obtained of 
the Secretary, 
Mr. J. SHARLAND. 
SunDyside, Bickley, Kent. 
Next Week’s Engagements. 
Monday, August 27th.—Sale of Dutch Bulbs at Protheroe & 
Morris’s and Stevens’ Rooms. 
Tuesday, August 28th.—Royal Horticultural Society: Meeting of 
Fruit and Floral Committees »t 11 a.m. Sale of Flowering and 
Imported Orchids at Protheroe & Morn -'s Rooms. Sale of 
Greenhouse Plants at the Nursery, High Road, Stamford 
Hill, by Protheroe & Morris. 
Wednesday, August 29th.—Flower Shows at Bishop’s Stortford, 
Rothamstead, and Sherborne. Derbyshire Agricultural and 
Horticultural Show (2 days). Special Sale of New Orchids 
at ProGieroe & Mo ris’s Rooms. Clearance Sale of Stove 
and Greenhouse Plants at Belstield. Windermere, by 
Protheroe & Morris (2 days). Sale of Dutch Bulbs at 
SfevenJ Rooms. 
HURSDAY, August 30th.—Flower Show at Hawick. Sale of 
riuporoed ai.ii Established Orchids at Stevens’ Rooms. Sale 
of Dutch Bulbs at Protheroe & Morris’s Rooms. Sale at the 
Mart, E.C., of the late Mr. T. Jacksons nursery, &c., at 
Kingston, by Protheroe and Morris. 
Friday, August 31st. —Gardeners’ Conference on Fruit Culture 
at Dunkeld. Sale of Established and Imported Orchids at 
Protheroe & Morris’s Rooms. 
Saturday, September 1st.—Sales of Dutch Bulbs at Protheroe & 
Morris’s, and Stevens’ Rooms. 
for;:index to contents, see p. 830. 
“ Gardening is the purest of human pleasures, and the greatest 
refreshment to the spirit of man.”— Bacon. 
last issue, these flowers were seen to the best 
advantage. Florists who grow, and those who 
are merely interested in the flower and do not 
cultivate it, or only in a small degree, came 
from all parts of the country to be present 
at this representative gathering of Carnation 
lovers. It is an exhibition unique in itself. 
It is held in Mr. E. S. Dodwell’s garden—a 
Carnation garden of such wondrous interest 
that no devotee of this flower should fail to 
visit it. A tent is filled wholly with blooms 
of Carnations and Picotees that compete for 
prizes; but round the tent thousands of pots 
of Carnations and Picotees can be seen in full 
bloom, arranged in the admirable houses and 
frames Mr. Dodwell has erected for the culture 
of his special favourite, and in which are 
several thousands of flowers. There is no 
charge for admission, but large numbers from 
the neighbourhood come to see it, and the 
occasion might he said to be a floral pilgrimage, 
where devotees worship at a fitting shrine, and 
go away again refreshed, strengthened, and 
delighted. The social element is developed 
and ministered to in a way altogether fresh, 
and highly enjoyable ; and while every com¬ 
petitor strives to win, there is a marked 
absence of that feverish anxiety to excei, as 
witnessed at some competitive exhibitions. 
The awards of the prizes are acquiesced in, 
and all is contentment, agreement, and good 
fellowship. “ It is good to he here,” appears 
to he the sentiment uppermost in the mind of 
every one whose privilege it is to he present. 
That the Carnation is one of the oldest 
flowers that has engaged the attention of the 
florist there can he no doubt. Parkinson’s 
Paradisus contains a chapter headed Carna¬ 
tions, and a list of nineteen named varieties 
is given, and there is an arrangement in two 
classes; hut as Mr. Shirley Hibberd has 
pointed out, the classification has no scientific 
value, because it depended chiefly on the 
relative sizes of the floivers ; the largest, as 
a rule,, were Carnations, and the smaller ones 
were called Gillyflowers, but if we could hunt 
up the fifty or sixty sorts with. which 
Parkinson was acquainted, we should probably 
class his Carnations as Cloves, and his Gilly¬ 
flowers as Carnations. Many flowers have 
obtained the title of Gillyflowers, hut the 
Carnation is the Gillyflower of the old poets 
and herbalists. 
SATURDAY, AUGUST 25, 1888. 
The Oxford Carnation and Picotee Union. 
—The Carnation has recently been holding 
high revel as an exhibition flower, for special 
exhibitions have lately been held in London, 
at Oxford, and in Manchester. In point of 
extent, of quality, and of general interest, 
Oxford may be said to have eclipsed both. 
The London exhibition is necessarily an early 
fixture to suit the southern growers, whose 
flowers mature earlier than those grown in 
the midland districts and further north. 
Oxford comes next in point of time, generally 
a week or fortnight later than London, and 
it secures the later blooms of the south and 
the earlier ones of the north, while the 
midland growers are generally found at their 
best. Manchester comes from four to seven 
days later than Oxford, and at this exhibi¬ 
tion the growers of the extreme north are 
usually seen at their best. There is no lack 
of enthusiasm on behalf of the Carnation. 
Growers fresh to the work come to the fore 
annually. The Carnation has become a great 
favourite for decorative purposes, and is being 
largely grown, and this fact re-acts for good 
upon the culture of the refined florists’ 
varieties. 
At the fourth exhibition of the Oxford 
Carnation and Picotee Union, reported in our 
That the Carnation has an ancient history 
there can be no doubt, for there is a 
reference to it bj r Pliny, in the eighth 
chapter of his twenty-fifth book, as the 
Cantabrica, which he says was discovered in 
Spain in the days of Julius Csesar. In his 
witty and interesting speech at the recent 
meeting of the Oxford Union, Mr. Shirley 
ITibherd said the Carnation was a divine 
flower; it was the Dianthus, Dios cmtlios 
(flower of Jove), and it was no stretch of 
the imagination to suppose that when the 
gods were up in Olympus they used the 
Dianthus as garlands and emblems, and in 
fact the flower itself was sometimes called 
the Coronation flower, because it has pink 
round the edges, and represented very much 
the diadem which Jove wore upon his awful 
brow. 
A flower with such an ancient lineage is one 
full of interest. How long a time it occupied 
to develop the Carnation of the present day, 
it is probably impossible to say. That the 
work of improvement has been slow, gradual 
and sure, there can be no doubt; and for 
aught we know to the contrary, may have 
extended over a period of four or five hundred 
years. When the Picotee began to he differ¬ 
entiated from the Carnation, it is perhaps very 
difficult to determine. AVe can imagine that 
the flakes of colour were at first longitudinal 
upon the petals, and in course of time the 
florist of his day began to set himself to work 
to draw the colour further and further towards 
the petal margin, until it culminated in the 
regular heading or edge we see in the present 
day. The task of placing the flaked and 
bizarre Carnations and Picotees under their 
several classes, and imparting to them a dis¬ 
tinctive character, must have been a work 
extending over many years. AA e have much 
reason to he grateful for what the florist has 
done in the past: to-day we have entered into 
the possession and enjoyment of the heritage 
he and his fellow-workers have handed down 
to us in so large a measure. 
-AX<-- 
The Dutch Bulb Trade.—We have before had occa¬ 
sion to comment upon the irrepressible activity of 
the Dutch bulb growers in pushing their trade by 
questionable means in this country, but of all the dubious 
acts of the least honourable among them that have 
come under our notice, nothing beats the cool 
impudence—not to use a stronger epithet—of the 
following circular, which has been distributed among 
gardeners by a Dutch firm, whose name, we may add, 
is not to he found in the trade directories :— 
“ For. the Gardener. 
“To encourage gentlemen’s gardeners to do justice 
to-bulbs and to give their masters full satisfaction 
and good value for their outlay, - give 10 p. c. on 
all their orders to the gardeners, and beg to inform 
them that these bulbs are the finest grown in Holland, 
-bulb fields being situated in the district, which is 
well known in Holland to produce the first quality of 
bulbs, owing to the nature of the soil and other advan¬ 
tages which bulb growers in less favoured parts of 
the country cannot command.” 
Further comment would be superfluous. 
Mr. William Napper, of Alphington, Exeter, who 
for nearly twenty years has been connected with the 
old nursery business of Messrs. Lucombe, Pince & Co., 
has recently accepted an engagement as general manager 
to the rising firm of Jarman & Co., of Chard. 
The York Gala.—We hear that Mr. John Wilson, 
for thirty years the secretary of the York Gala, has 
resigned that office, and purposes leaving York to 
live near London. Thirty years since it w 7 as decided 
that a flower show and gala should be held in York, 
and Mr. Wilson took up the position of secretary. 
What that first exhibition has grown into during the 
thirty years is familiar to many of our readers. 
Courteous to all, and a thorough business man, he soon 
won the esteem of all who, as exhibitors or in any 
official capacity, were associated with him, and hearty 
good wishes will follow him in his retirement from 
public life. 
Gardening Engagements. —Mr. R. Gray, for a number 
of years gardener to Earl Stanhope, at Chevening, 
Seveuoaks, as gardener to J. Spender Clay, Esq., Eord 
Manor, Lingfield, Surrey. Mr. A. Molyneux, gardener 
at Burton Hill, Petworth, as gardener to J. Carpenter 
Gamier, Esq., Rooksbury Park, Fareham, Hants. 
Vegetarianism. — A meeting of members cf the 
London Press, at a fruit and cake tea and conference, 
will be held at the “ Central” Restaurant, 16, St. Bride 
Street, Ludgate Circus, E.C., on Monday next, at 
five o’clock p.m., when a few short addresses will be 
given by the Rev. Professor J. E. B. Mayor, M.A., 
Alderman H. Phillips, and other friends of food reform, 
The special object of the conference is to discuss the 
intimate connection between vegetarianism and temper¬ 
ance, purity, thrift, and many other social and moral 
reforms. 
Hedge-cutting Machine.—A correspondent writes 
“ At the Yorkshire Agricultural Society’s show, held 
recently at Huddersfield, in the stand for grass mowers, 
the machines of the Massey Manufacturing Company 
were especially noticeable for a clever and ingenious 
mechanical contrivance, by which the knives and 
socket can easily be thrown and worked from the hori¬ 
zontal position to the perpendicular. I am not 
acquainted with all the technical points of merit which 
the makers claim for these machines, but the idea has 
since suggested itself to me that were they driven 
alongside field hedges, they would work exactly on the 
same principle as Ridgeway’s patent hand-shears, thus 
combining a mower and clipper in one, especially if the 
rod or crank could be lengthened so as not to entail 
driving one wheel too near to the hedge. Anyway, it 
seems to be a first step in that direction.” 
. Notes on the Cultivation of Dutch and Cape 
Bulbs, &c.—This is the title of a little book on the 
cultivation of all kinds of garden plants having 
bulbous, tuberous, or other fleshy roots, and which are 
