506 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
April 11, 1891. 
needful sowing and planting. All such work 
is now proceeding apace, whilst the minds of 
those who planted largely of trees and shrubs 
in the winter are immensely relieved. We 
seem once more to breathe a pure cleansed 
atmosphere, in which vegetation as well as 
humanity alike rejoice. 
-— >X< —-— 
Tin' Acton Horticultural Society’s twenty-fourth 
annual exhibition will take place on July 22nd. 
The Bedilington, Carshalton and Walling ton Hor¬ 
ticultural Society will hold its annual show in 
Beddington Park, on August 3rd. 
The Highgate Horticultural Society will hold its 
thirty-second annual exhibition in the grounds at 
Holly Lodge, West Hill, Highgate, on July 16th. 
The Temple Show. — The date of the Temple 
Show of the Royal Horticultural Society has now been 
definitively fixed for Thursday and Friday, May 28th 
and 29 th. The show will be opened at one o’clock on 
Thursday, May 28th, by Her Royal Highness the 
Princess Christian. 
Gardening Engagements.— Mr. John Gilbert, late 
foreman at Old Warden Park, Biggleswade, as gardener 
to Lord Willoughby de Eresby, at Normanton Park, 
Stamford. Mr. W. Davies, from the Botanic Gardens, 
Glasgow, as gardener to Lord Bateman, Shobdon Court, 
Hereford. 
Complimentary Dinner to a Scottish Gardener.— 
Mr. Peter McCowan, for some time gardener at 
Hamilton House, Perth, having been engaged as 
gardener to George Neilson, Esq., at Crossbasket, near 
High Blantyre, in Lanarkshire, was recently entertained 
at dinner by his brother gardeners in the Perth district, 
and warmly complimented on his preferment. 
Forestry at Edinburgh University.—At a recent 
meeting of the Council of the Royal Scottish Arbori- 
cultural Society, it was announced that the grant of 
£100 from the Board of Agriculture, in aid of the 
lectures on Forestry conducted by Dr. Somerville, 
Edinburgh University, has been renewed for the current 
year. 
The Egham Juvenile Floral and Industrial Society 
works on lines which might with advantage be imitated 
in every parish in the country. It is managed by 
a committee of ladies and gentlemen, and its objects 
are the encouragement in the young of the cultivation 
of flowers, and the execution of handicraft and needle¬ 
work. The next exhibition will be held in the last 
week in July, when numerous small prizes will be 
awarded in over fifty classes, arranged in divisions for 
seniors and juniors, and we note that besides various 
competitions in the floral section, there will be a 
contest in digging and drilling, open to boys between 
twelve and seventeen years of age. 
Sale of the Birehfield Orchids.—We learn from 
the Manchester Examiner that the sale of Mr. Heine’s 
collection of specimen Orchids last week in that city was 
a very successful one, and that there was a good com¬ 
petition among the leading amateur growers for the 
choicest lots. The most important purchase during the 
sale was that made by Mr. George Hardy, of Timperley, 
who paid eighty guineas for fifty-eight bulbs and 
thirteen leads of the magnificent Cattleya Skinneri 
alba. 
Hibberd Memorial Fund.—The Committee beg leave 
to announce that this fund, instituted for the purpose 
of securing a portrait of the late Mr. Hibberd, to be 
placed in the Lindley Library, and with the object of 
securing a fund for the benefit of Mr. Hibberd’s orphan 
daughter, will be closed on April 30th, 1891, and they 
particularly request that all subscriptions may be paid 
to the treasurer on or before that day. The amount 
received or promised up to that date is about £210, a 
sum which it is hoped may be considerably augmented 
before the closure of the fund, especially by the receipt 
of numerous small sums from the many who hold Mr. 
Hibberd’s name in respect. Subscriptions should be 
sent to the treasurer of the fund, Dr. Masters, at the 
Royal Horticultural Society, 117, Victoria Street, 
Westminster. 
The Bruce Potato.—A strong committee has been 
formed in Scotland for the purpose of getting up a 
testimonial to Mr. Findlay, of Marckinch, the raiser of 
the Bruce Potato. Mr. James Hope, of Eastbarns, 
has been appointed to lead the movement, and Mr. 
Fyshe, of Treaton, secretary of the Windygates 
Agricultural Society, has been appointed secretary and 
treasurer. An immense number of farmers in Scotland 
have found the Bruce as much a deliverer from the 
tyranny of bad times as their ancestors found the 
Bruce a deliverer from the galling tyranny of Saxon 
oppression. The Bruce has proved itself an immense 
cropper, a good resister of disease, and an esculent of 
high quality besides. It is much to be hoped, then, 
that the raiser of such a valuable variety should be 
suitably rewarded, so that Mr. Findlay and all who are 
working in the same line may be encouraged to go on 
in the same good work.— North British Agriculturist. 
Sale of Mi-. Pollett’s Orchids.—For the information 
of amateurs and others interested in the value of 
Orchids, we append a list of some of the more important 
lots sold at Messrs. Protheroe & Morris’s Rooms, on 
Tuesday and Wednesday last.—The highest prices 
realised on Tuesday were £105 for Odontoglossum 
crispum Lcopardinum, with six bulbs ; O. crispum 
lilacina, with six bulbs, £84 ; O. Ruckerianum super¬ 
bum, seven bulbs, £27 6s.; O. Halli magnificum, eight 
bnlb9, £35 15s.; Ltelia anceps Hillii, £16 16s.; Cattleya 
Triante Backhouseana, £11 ; Odontoglossum citrosmum 
punctatissimum, £15 15s. ; O. crispum Bickleyense, 
£16 16s. ; Cattleya Schroderse, £17 17s. ; Cattleya 
Mossi* Arnoldiana, £13 13s.; Cypripedium Elliottia- 
num, £19 19s. ; Cypripedium Morganise, nine growths, 
£3110s.; Odontoglossum crispum Bonnyanum, £1919s.; 
Laelia elegans Turneri, £15 15s. ; Cattleya Trianas alba, 
£15 15s. ; Odontoglossum elegans, £39 ; 0. Pollett- 
ianum, £3S 17s. ; and Cypripedium Charles Canham, 
£15 15s. On Wednesday the principal lots were 
Odontoglossum crispum, spotted variety, £15 15s. ; 
Cypripedium Germinyanum, £10 10s.; C. Thibauti- 
anum, £16 os. ; Odontoglossum Ruckerianum, 
£16 16s. ; 0. Bickleyense, £18 18s. ; 0. elegans, 
£25 4s.; 0. crispum punctatissimum, £22 ; Cypri¬ 
pedium orphanum, £19 19s. ; Odontoglossum erispum 
guttatum, £16 16s. ; Cattleya aurea grandiflora, 
£11 11s. ; and Cypripedium leucorhodum, £18 18s. 
--»£«•- 
CHRYSANTHEMUMS. 
Looking Back for Sixty Years. 
I have a vivid recollection of these plants in my young 
days when the means and appliances for growing them, 
as compared to those of the present time, were of a 
very meagre and rude description. Yet for all that, 
good plants for decorative purposes were produced of 
most of the kinds then in cultivation, and when the 
weather during the autumnal months was of a.genial 
character the displays in the open garden were fully 
equal to those of the present time, and I think I may 
say more so, for the reason that the flower gardens then 
were under quite a different system of arrangement as 
regards planting for floral effect. Hardy herbaceous 
plants were then, as a matter of necessity, pretty 
extensively grown, and with the addition of such 
plants as could be housed through the winter months, 
in many cases, as the limited means would permit. 
Gardeners of the present day, more especially the 
younger portion of them, can scarcely conceive even in 
the remotest degree the difficulties that the gardeners 
of the old school had to contend with; but this much I 
can say without the slightest hesitation, that although 
present-day gardeners enjoy privileges enhanced a 
thousand-fold, the pleasure taken in the cultivation of 
Nature’s choice gifts is not more intense or more fully 
appreciated now than in the olden time. 
In those early days of one’s life the flower gardens 
and extensive shrubberies with flower borders were grace¬ 
fully designed with good old English taste. The beds 
and the borders were interesting as a rule at all seasons, 
and being planted with miscellaneous plants some 
fresh object was always presenting itself. The 
seasons, too, so far as my memory serves me, were far 
more uniform in character at that time than in recent 
years. 
Dahlias were largely grown, and some seasons I 
had very good blooms as late as November. I am 
speaking of the period when Springfield Rival Dodd’s 
Mary and other varieties were the first favourites of the 
day. 
The Chrysanthemums used to follow the latest 
summer-flowering plants, and in conjunction with the 
Dahlias, made the'decline of summer and early autumn 
cheerful and gay. At the time to which I refer there 
was no very special mode adopted in the cultivation of 
the autumn queen. Some of the plants were allowed 
to remain in the beds and borders until they formed 
stools or clumps, and when it was deemed necessary to 
increase the number of plants, it used to be the practice 
in very many instances to take up these old plants and 
divide them into tens, twenties, or even fifties, should 
they be required. These were again returned to the 
beds and borders, which had been renovated with good 
well-decomposed manure and leaf-soil, cow-manure for 
light soil, and that of horses for heavy soils. 
Some of the rooted cutting-like shoots used to 
be put in well-prepared borders as a reserve stock to be 
grown in pots, and in due course housed in vineries or 
Peach houses, with the object of plants being kept in 
reserve for the embellishment of the conservatory, and 
also for cut flowers. 
Possibly I may be asked by some of our young 
growers of the present day, as to the style and form of 
growth of these plants. I may reply, in honour 
to the memory of our departed friends and forefathers 
in the gardening art and science, that a great number 
of these plants were so handled that could they have 
been reproduced, would not have failed to have graced 
the stands, tables and groups that were shown in the 
year of grace, 1890. It must not be inferred that I am 
for a moment speaking of monster blooms, or the hop- 
pole or mop system of growing these lovely and cheering 
autumnal favourites ; I particularly allude to the per¬ 
fection attained in the manipulation and finish as 
regards flowers, foliage and form of the plants collec¬ 
tively as well as individually. I am speaking of those 
good old cultivators who would be disgusted could they 
but see some of the plants which are used to form the 
groups at many of our exhibitions of the present day. 
It must not be supposed because they had not the 
appliances and materials that growers can boast of now, 
that they were not strictly economists of the first 
order, and in excelsior-like earnestness kept the 
standard of perfection proudly floating before them on 
their onward march of progress. 
I may mention that in my native village, so far as I 
can remember, some remarkably telling plants used to 
be grown year after year in the front of a villa resi¬ 
dence owned and occupied by a Captain Whittaker. 
The bed in which these were grown was planted with 
dwarf shrubs, Roses, &c., and the Chrysanthemums 
uniformly arranged, and trained to neat stakes with 
one stem only, which practice prevented over-crowding 
and damage to the other occupants of the bed. The 
height of the plants when in bloom was from 5 ft. to 
7 ft., very strong, with beautifully-formed clusters of 
large flowers of the quilled and tasselled kinds, white, 
yellow, purple, buff, crimson, pink, red, orange, 
sulphur, &e. 
In the year 1837 Mr. J. Martin, of Winchester, 
offered in twelve sections upwards of five dozen 
varieties. Amongst them was a small yellow one named 
after my old friend, Mr. J. D. Park, who was sent to 
China in 1S23 by the Horticultural Society of London, 
and who sent home the greater part of the Chrysan¬ 
themums that were grown upwards of half a century 
ago. At this period of the world’s history glass structures 
were few and far between, and the accommodation for 
ornamental flowering plants was on a very limited scale, 
consequently, with the exception of the comparative 
few, outdoor cultivation was pretty general throughout 
the country. It must be understood, to the credit 
of the good housewives of that period, that they had 
minds imbued with great zest in arranging and fur¬ 
nishing their flower gardens, which were large in 
country places, and had their bowers and summer¬ 
houses. These were the hospitable days of old, when 
neighbours were neighbours in every sense of the term. 
There was not wanting the spirit of fraternization ; it 
was the supreme pleasure of the one to assist the other, 
and give freely such plants as the others did not possess. 
This was a matter of great consideration to very 
many, as anything new and choice was sent out at a 
great price in the first instance, consequently the more 
humble of the plant lovers were recipients of great 
kindness from their affluent neighbours who could 
afford to purchase plants at a high price. In this way 
good things were to be seen embellishing even the 
thatched dwelling places of the most lowly, and as 
the Chrysanthemum proved itself a plant of such a 
prolific character, and so easy to increase, most gardens 
wore a cheerful aspect as each autumnal season presented 
itself. 
I admit that it would be futile and preposterous for 
me to insinuate that the old times can be compared 
with the present, but it must be patent to all who 
have a knowledge of old-time customs that, com¬ 
paratively, the cost in producing the grand displays that 
we are privileged to see at the present day is enhanced 
to an almost immeasurable degree without, I am 
bound to say, giving more real pleasure to the lover of 
