Marcli 21, 1891. 
THE GARDENING WORLD 
461 
of the floral world are those who appear to wish to 
usurp to themselves the term florist, having set up for 
themselves rules and restrictions whereby they would 
exclude from culture or from exhibition every thing 
which was not exactly in accordance with their ideas 
of beauty. 
I am thankful that I have ever been kept from this 
narrow-minded view. I love beauty in every form ; 
for every thing of beauty in Nature I have great rever- 
ance ; for every thing beautiful in the flora I have an 
intense love and admiration. I can admire the show 
Carnation and the edged Picotee with all their stiff 
formality ; but 1 can equally well admire those deli¬ 
cately tinted and wondrously marked flowers, so long 
held in esteem and carefully cultivated by our Con¬ 
tinental brethren. Thanks to their artistic taste and 
innate love of colour they have produced such marvel¬ 
lous combinations of harmonious colouring, of which 
but few of the English florists had any conception. 
Mr. Barlow and others have often wondered why I 
never enter the lists as an exhibitor ; simply because 
there has been no class for such as me. In the first 
place my particular pets have been these fancies, and 
to these I have tenaciously stuck for many, many years . 
and a fancy Carnation was excluded from 
the show table until I took a few blooms 
of Continental seedlings to the first show 
of the Oxford Union. Of course, as a rule 
the florists called them rubbish, but some 
few—particularly the ladies—were filled 
with admiration. Mr. Dodwell, particu¬ 
larly acknowledging their beauty and use¬ 
fulness as decorative blooms, introduced 
a class for seifs and fancies, and now 
they have become one of the most attractive 
features of the annual feast of Carnations. 
But then, there is another feature, to 
which I have a decided objection on the 
show-table. The blooms are not admitted 
until they have been deprived of all their 
natural freedom of beauty ; twitched, 
tweezered, and manipulated until they are 
in no degree like what they were grown, 
ultimately placed on a stiff card, placed 
flat as a pancake in a box, and arranged 
in such perfect order that, unless in the 
eyes of a connoisseur, diversity is almost 
indistinguishable. 1 know that I am 
almost alone in the stand I have taken 
so far as the exhibitors go, but there are 
numbers of amateur-lovers of the Carnation 
and Picotee who share with me this 
feeling, and refuse to show their flowers 
because of this system of manipulating 
and malformation. 
I was delighted and hopeful, when, at 
the Chiswick Show in 1890, Mr. Martin 
Smith offered such liberal terms for the 
exhibition of Carnations of open-ground 
culture ; but when I came to look through 
the schedule I found it positively prohi¬ 
bitive, the first prize for twelve blooms of 
one variety being beyond the reach of any 
moderate amateur. The second class is 
for twelve varieties of seifs, six of each 
variety ; but who, other than an extensive 
trade grower, can afford to cut six perfect 
blooms of twelve distinct colours, all seifs ? 
Then lastly, is the class for six blooms each of eighteen 
varieties, any kind. Well, if any amateur should be 
able to cut six blooms each of eighteen varieties by 
July 21st from the open ground, I shall be greatly sur¬ 
prised. Had they been presented in pairs or in triplets 
doubtless there would have been a grand competition ; 
but it is the first season, and experience will be the 
teacher of the future. 
I greatly fear that the late severe weather will 
sadly mar the hopes of those who are going in for 
open-ground culture of the florists’ flowers generally, 
but the Carnation in particular. My Carnation beds 
are looking exceedingly shabby and ragged, but the 
first gleam of sunshine will be the test. — William 
Wardill, Luton. 
Newer Kinds of Fancy Pansies. 
I have read with interest the correspondence in your 
columns on this subject, and feel that the discussion 
must be interesting to all growers of these lovely 
flowers. No one who has grown Pansies for competition 
during the last few years can but be aware that at least 
three-fourths of the so-called new varieties sent out each 
season are inferior to many sorts already well known. 
A great many of these so called new varieties are so 
like older ones that it is next to. impossible to 
distinguish any difference between them. Take for 
example that good old variety (now almost extinct), 
Mrs. G. P. Frame, which, I think, was the pioneer of 
its class. Since its introduction a great many new 
varieties after that stylo have been sent out, and there 
are very few of them that are any great improvement 
on the old one when at its best. 
What is really wanted in new varieties is new 
shades of colour, distinct from anything we have. 
Maggie A. Scott, Lord Hamilton and May Hynd are 
real acquisitions in this respect. Although from what 
experience I have had of Lord Hamilton it is very 
liable to run, yet it is a splendid flower when you get 
a good bloom of it. Most of your correspondents blame 
the florists who send out new sorts for giving mis¬ 
leading descriptions of them but we must bear in mind 
that the florist has to make a living, that competition 
in trade is very keen, and that puffing is a recognised 
practice in all branches of trade ; we know these things, 
and have only ourselves'to blame if we are taken in by 
glowing descriptions. Another evil of trade catalogues 
is the exaggerated descriptions given of many old 
r;v. 
The late Mr. William Richards. 
varieties, which were no doubt good in their day, 
but have long since disappeared from prize stands. 
This is very misleading, for we all know when a variety 
becomes old its constitution gets weak, and its flowers 
small and worthless for competition purposes. 
Bad judging is a great source of grievance among 
Pansy competitors, and the cause of this is that 
horticultural societies will have all head gardeners as 
judges, and very few gardeners know anything about 
the points of a Pansy. Indeed, but few gardeners grow 
them, show them, or take any interest in them whatever. 
I have known good growers get so thoroughly disgusted 
with the judging that they have stopped showing 
altogether. I cannot agree with your correspondent, 
Mr. Wm. Dean, that because a variety receives so many 
first class certificates (even though these are granted by 
canny Scots), that it must necessarily be an acquisition. 
Some of our very best varieties have never been 
certificated at all. Take for example the following 
four varieties : Maggie A. Scott and Donald Morrison 
have not been certificated, but Miss French has had 
eight, and Mrs. J. Ellis five first class awards. During 
the last two years I have scarcely seen a prize stand 
without the first two, and very often one or both in the 
back row, while at the same time I have rarely seen 
any with the last two, and certainly never in the 
leading row. This I think goes to prove that the 
former two are better varieties than the last. 
Miss French, I admit, is a good flower in every 
respect but size, but its deficiency in that respect 
renders it of very little use as a competition flower. 
Mrs. J. Ellis has no special merit to recommend it, and 
is also very deficient in size.- If Miss French could be 
grown to the size of D. Morrison or Maggie A. Scott, 
it would be as its raiser describes it, the most perfect 
Pansy ever sent out. For the information of your 
correspondents I may state that Bella Coutts is a 
seedling from Pattison’s Lord Rosebery, but quite 
distinct, and a very fair flower, but rather difficult to 
get a perfect bloom of.— West of Scotland. 
--»*<-- 
DEATH OF Mr. W. RICHARDS. 
With sorrow, most keenly felt at the loss of a warm 
personal friend and former colleague, we have to record 
the death, on the 11th inst., in his forty-fourth year, 
of Mr. William Richards, for over twenty years the 
publisher of The Gardeners’ Chronicle. Mr. Richards 
was so widely known and so much respected in the 
horticultural world that, though his many 
friends had been painfully aware for months 
past that his days were numbered, the end 
came suddenly and gave a shock to all. 
He had long been struggling against the 
ravages made on his constitution by pul¬ 
monary consumption, and although a 
voyage he undertook to New Zealand 
checked the progress of the disease for a 
time, the trip was taken all too late to 
effect a cure. 
Mr. Richards, who received his early 
training in the office of The Athenceum, 
became publisher of The Chronicle in the 
spring of 1870—on the retirement of the 
late Mr. Matthews, who had held the office 
from the establishment of the paper in 
1841—was an excellent man of business, 
honourable and straightforward in all his 
acts, and a warm-hearted, open-handed, 
genial friend, ever ready to do a kindly 
act in any cause that enlisted his sympa¬ 
thies. For several years, as a member of 
the committee, he took great interest in the 
affairs of the Gardeners’ Royal Benevolent 
Institution, and on the projection of the 
Gardeners’ Orphan Fund scheme threw 
himself heartily into the movement, took 
charge of the finances until a treasurer was 
appointed, and materially helped in estab¬ 
lishing the fund on a basis that has proved 
remarkably successful. A willing worker 
and able administrator, he will be sadly 
missed by both institutions. 
The mortal remains of our old friend were 
consigned to their last resting place in 
-feofcA Ivensal Green Cemetery on Monday last, in 
the presence of a considerable number of 
attached friends, including Dr. Masters and 
the Chronicle staff, representatives of the 
committees of the Gardeners’ Royal Bene 
volent Institution and the Gardeners’ 
Orphan Fund, of the Nursery and Seed 
Trade, and of the Caxton Lodge of Free¬ 
masons, of which he was one of the founders and Tast 
Masters. 
Mr. Richards leaves a widow and four children. 
-- 
AQUILEGTAS. 
Few plants in the herbaceous border are more ad¬ 
mirable and handsome than the Aquilegias or 
Columbines. Being favoured with many valuable 
characteristics, they deservedly command the attention 
of many cultivators. Like many other herbaceous 
subjects their culture is extremely simple, and being 
perfectly hardy, they require no protection during the 
winter months ; even a severe and protracted winter like 
the one just passed has had no injurious effect upon 
them whatever. Our plants at the present time are 
producing an abundance of beautiful healthy foliage, 
which, according to present appearances, will probably 
be followed by a number of handsome flower spikes. 
Ordinary varieties of A. vulgaris are in no way 
fastidious with regard to soil; nevertheless, they prefer a 
genial well-drainedsoiltoacold, heavy and retentive one. 
All varieties of the above-named species, as well as those 
of the hybrids, reproduce themselves very abundantly 
from seed. Strong established plants in herbaceous 
borders may remain untouched in the same situation 
for a number of years.— J. Peebles, Holly-dene, Bromley, 
