November 22, 1890. 
THE GARDENING WORLD- 
185 
phere become dry and arid, and the spider permitted 
to establish itself, it will rapidly spread and permanently 
disfigure the foliage. Should green-fly make its 
appearance, recourse can be had to fumigating with 
tobacco-paper. Shading from the direct rays of the 
sun is beneficial to the Bouvardia during the summer 
months.— J. Peebles. 
undertaken the task but failed almost at the last hour, 
when Mr. Hibberd undertook the work, and reading up 
the subject from the newspapers of the day, he worked 
up a story which fitted in so neatly with the different 
panoramic views, that on one occasion an old colonel who 
was present got up and exclaimed, “It is perfectly true, 
for I was there myself ! ”—a testimonial to the skill and 
ability of the lecturer comparable only to the “goosing ” 
of the leading villain in a successful play. 
But we are somewhat anticipating our story. From 
a juvenile bookseller Mr. Hibberd gradually blossomed 
into a bookmaker, and at the age of twenty-five was 
the author of a budget of essays, entitled Brambles and 
Bay Leaves , and also editor of a weekly newspaper. 
He seems always to have been a keen observer of nature 
and a thorough lover of gardening. Getting married 
in early life he settled down for a time in Penton- 
ville, and went in for urban horticulture, the result 
of his experience as an amateur gardener being the 
publication of The Town, Garden, which has since 
been many times reprinted. From Pentonville he 
migrated to Stoke Newington—the classic home of the 
Chrysanthemum in this country—and commenced a 
long series of experiments in horticulture, the results of 
men, and which we cannot say was quite undeserved ; 
at any rate, no one apparently cared to see their trees 
loaded with brick-bats, and so the system he advocated 
for bringing trees into fruitfulness was never adopted. 
He was an early breeder of zonal Pelargoniums, and 
gave up only when the late Dr. Denny took up the work, 
after getting inspiration from Mr. Hibberd. His most 
important work at Stoke Newington was in connection 
with the culture of the Bose, and which led to the 
publication of The Bose Bool: in 1864. Again he had 
to clear the ground and seek pastures new, this time 
settling down in a sequestered spot between Tottenham 
and Muswell Hill, where he conducted many trials and 
experiments, which were duly reported upon, or formed 
the basis of some of his many publications. In 1858 
he became editor of a monthly publication called 
the Floral IVorld, which he carried on with vigour till 
1875, when he retired from its direction, and it soon 
afterwards ceased to be published. His connection 
with the Gardeners' Magazvne commenced in August, 
1861, but he had previously been a contributor to 
Harrison’s Floricultural Cabinet, a monthly, and 
subsequently a fortnightly publication, of which the 
Magazine is the direct descendant. He was also for 
many years the editor of 
the “ Garden Oracle ” and 
an occasional contributor 
to The Times, The City 
Press, The Field, The 
Gardeners’ Clironiele, and 
other papers. At various 
times, also, he published 
The Fern Garden, A Mono¬ 
graph of the Ivy, The Sea¬ 
weed Collector, The Marine 
Aquarium, The Kitchen 
Garden, The Flower Garden, 
A Handy Bool: for Rambling 
Botanists, The Amateurs’ 
Greenhouse and Conser¬ 
vatory, Profitable Garden¬ 
ing, and New, Rare, and 
Beautiful - leaved. Plants• 
besides smaller works on 
numerous subjects, such as 
the Culture of the Water¬ 
cress, &c., and some others 
on general subjects, and ot 
a more ambitious character, 
that we do not now 
remember the titles of. Mr. 
Hibberd was not only in 
later years a book-maker, 
he was a bookworm too, and 
possessed many valuable 
works, including many of 
the rarest editions of Shake¬ 
speare. 
In the early days of 
his connection with the 
Gardeners' Magazine, he 
fought hard for reform in 
connection with the Royal 
Horticultural Society, and 
for several years was one of 
the strongest opponents of the 
then Council’s system of management. He relentlessly 
exposed anything in the shape of exclusiveness or 
favouritism in connection with the society’s manage¬ 
ment for some years, but was beaten in time, and 
when a few years ago, on the death of his first wife, 
he went to live at Kew, he ceased to be the fearless, 
hard-hitting critic of former days, and eventually got 
into the way of some others, who can only say “ ditto ” 
to everything the ruling powers may do. For several 
years he was a member of the Floral Committee. 
He took a leading part in the management of the 
series of International Potato Shows, which did so 
much good in promoting the improvement of the 
noble tuber. He was in his time either chairman, 
secretary, or an active member of innumerable 
committees established for various purposes in con¬ 
nection with horticulture, his last engagement of the 
kind being the chairmanship of the B. S. Williams 
Memorial Committee. There was scarcely a movement 
of any kind in connection with gardening that he did 
not lend most cordial assistance to, and at public 
dinners was ever-welcomed as one of the best of after- 
dinner speakers. 
Poor Shirley Hibberd ! Peace to his manes, for, take 
him all in all, he was a brilliant and useful man in 
his day and generation, and his death is a great disaster 
to horticulture. He died at his residence, 1, Priory Road. 
Kew Green, his sole living relative being his little 
daughter, by his second wife, aged six years. 
-- 
DEATH OF MR. SHIRLEY 
HIBBERD. 
With deep regret we have to record the death, early 
on Sunday morning last, of Mr. Shirley Hibberd. 
Though by no means an old man, being only in his 
sixty-sixth year, Mr. Hibberd had for several years 
past been obliged to take the greatest care of himself 
during the winter months, and consequently during 
periods of damp and fog was seldom seen away from his 
own fireside. This winter, however, until last week, 
he had, comparatively speaking, escaped his annual 
bronchial troubles, and on Tuesday evening, with all 
his old fire and energy, read a most interesting paper 
on the “ Origin of the Florists’ Chrysanthemum,” at the 
Centenary Conference in the Iron Room at the Aquarium. 
Shortly after he had acknow¬ 
ledged the vote of thanks 
accorded to him on the 
motion of the chairman, Sir 
Edwin Saunders, it was 
suggested to him by a friend 
in conversation that the 
room, was very cold, when 
he remarked that he had 
not felt the cold, but had a 
presentiment that he would 
suffer from the extra strain 
and excitement. As a matter 
of fact he did suffer from 
cold or extra excitement, 
and was very ill when he 
came to the dinner in St. 
Stephen’s Hall on Thursday 
evening, so ill indeed that 
he could hardly walk up¬ 
stairs. However, he braced 
himself together to propose 
the toast, as he had promised 
the Dinner Committee to 
do, “To the Eternal Glory 
of the Golden Flower that 
claims and obtains the con¬ 
stant homage and service of 
the National Chrysanthe¬ 
mum Society. ” He was not 
himself, but still treated 
the subject as no one else 
could have dealt with it, 
and sat down amidst the 
warmest applause, but few 
present knowing the painful 
circumstances under which 
the speech was delivered. 
He retired shortly after¬ 
wards, went home to bed and 
never got up again. Thus 
pissed away a most remark - 
which have been embodied in the numerous works on 
gardening that have issued from his pen. He early 
developed the plunging system of garden decoration, 
the most recent exponent of which is the Rev. 
W. Wilks, the secretary of the Royal Horticultural 
Society. All this was carried out at his residence 
in Lordship Terrace, where he accumulated collec¬ 
tions of Ivies, Hollies, and other berried plants, so 
numerous that he was led to demonstrate the value 
of his discoveries by exhibiting a collection of the most 
useful plants at a meeting of the Central Horticultural 
Society, with which the late Mr. George Glenny and 
the late Mr. George Gordon, of Chiswick renown, were 
then connected. 
The builders at Stoke Newington would seem to have 
been a great source of trouble to him, for through them 
he had several times to change his quarters. On the 
spot where Park Street now stands, he had a trial 
ground for vegetables, and there he raised his Prolific 
Marrow, the very best variety of its day, and the parent 
of all the subsequent improvements. Another of his 
gardens is now occupied by the nursery of Mr. Oubridge, 
and it was in this one that he carried out a series of 
experiments in grafting and fruit-tree training, which 
led to his reading a paper on the subject at a meeting 
of the Society of Arts in 1876. This, however, brought 
down upon him a vast amount of ridicule from practical 
able man, and his loss to horticulture will be keenly 
felt throughout the length and breadth of the land, for 
no man was better known. 
Mr. J. Shirley Hibberd was entirely the architect of 
his own fortune, and deserves all the more honour on 
that account. His father, a seaman in the British 
navy, fought under Nelson at the battle of Trafalgar, 
and the son, who was born in Stepney in 1825, earned 
his own living from the age of eleven years. Of educa¬ 
tion in the ordinary sense he had none but what he 
gained at the National school for the modest sum of 
two-pence per week, and of that he had precious little. 
His first service was with a bookseller, and this period 
he seems to have turned to good account in developing 
Ins mental faculties, for at the age of nineteen he 
undertook to deliver a series of lectures on Temperance 
at Newcastle, and acquitted himself so well that for a 
long time afterwards he had no difficulty in getting 
engagements of a similar nature. But Temperance 
was not the only subject on which Mr. Hibberd 
lectured ; when funds were short, as was often the case 
in his early days, he took on almost anything that came 
in his way, and exercised the greatest patience and self- 
denial in working up his subjects. It is known to but 
few now that he was engaged about 1856 by the late 
Mr. Wyld to lecture in the Great Globe in Leicester 
Square, on the Crimean War. Someone else had 
