March 19, 1892. 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
449 
BOXES OF 
VEGETABLE SEEDS. 
WEBBS' 
Arranged to produce a constant supply of the 
best Vegetables all the year round. 
WEBBS’ BOX , of Vegetable Seeds, 5 
WEBBS' BOX,12/6 
WEBBS’ B0X, c s“3SCsSf 15/- 
WUUUG* PHY Containing61 varieties QJ / 
lYliDDG DU A, of Vegetable Seeds, /’ 
Acknowledged to be the best value e> er offered. 
OTHER BOXES 
At 2/6, 7/P. 3116, 42',-, 63 / , and 105/- each. 
All Carriep° Free. 5 per Cent. Discount for 
Cash. 
SEEDS 
I For Priced Lists, Descriptions, and Illustrations oi 
the best sorts, see Webbs' Spring Catalogue, post 
free, 1 /-, gratis to Customers. Abridged Edition 
gratis and post free. 
WEBB &, SONS, 
WORDSEEY, STOURBRIDGE. 
orchids: 
THE 
Liverpool Horticultural do. 
(JOHN COWAN) Ltd., 
Have an Immense Stock of 
ORCHIDS, 
Both Established and Semi-established, 
and they are constantly receiving 
IMPORTATIONS 
from various parts of the world. 
INSPECTION IS YERY EARNESTLY INYITED. 
The Company's Prices arc all fixed 
as low as possible with the view of 
inducing liberal orders. 
Priced and Descriptive Catalogue 
post free on application to the Co., 
The Vineyard and Nurseries, 
GARSTQN nr. LIVERPOOL 
ORCHIDS ft SPECIALITY, 
Many new, choice, and rare species and varieties 
always in stock. 
HARDY HERBACEOUS PLANTS. 
One of the finest collection of these plants known. 
CHRYSANTHEMUMS, 
A grand collection of proved novelties. Write for 
our new descriptive 
CATALOGUES, NOW READY, 
And post free on application to— 
PITCHER &, MA N DA, 
The United States Nurseries, 
HEXTABLE SWANLEY KENT. 
THE MOST SUITABLE FOR 
SHADING ORCHIDS, FERNS, 
PALMS, and STOVE and 
GREENHOUSE PLANTS. 
It is a strong durable Cotton Netting, 
woven in squares so close as to 
exclude the direct rays of the sun 
but admitting the greatest y 
amount of light attainable y 
through shading. 
Blinds made up and 
Fixed Complete. 
It 
withstands 
the weather 
better than any 
other class of Shad¬ 
ing, and may be bene¬ 
ficially used on account 
the thickness of its tex¬ 
ture, during c Id weather, to 
k f ep the frost out. The leading 
Orchid and Plant Growers in the 
country have used this material for 
some years, and speak very highly of 
pronouncing it to be the very best 
material for plants they have ever used. 
Sold in pieces 30 yds. long by U yds wide, 
price 40s. each. Samples submittt d gratis. 
WILLIAMS & SON, 
Victoria & Paradise Nurseries, Upper Holloway, 
LONDON, N. 
For Index to Contents see page 458. 
“ Gardening is the purest or human pleasures, and the greates 
refreshment to the spirit of man."— Bacon. 
NEXT WEEK'S ENGAGEMENTS. 
Monday, March 21. —Sale of Hardy Plants at Protheroe & 
Morris’ Rooms. 
TutSDAY, March 22.— Royal Horticultural Society: Commit¬ 
tee meetings at 12 o'clock. Sale of Orchids at Protheroe & 
Morris’ Rooms. 
Wednesday, March 23.— Royal Botanic Society's Spring 
Show. Sale of Palm Seeds, Greenhouse Plants, etc., at 
Protheroe & Morris’ Rooms. 
Friday, March 25. —Sale of imported Orchids, at Protheroe 
& Morris’ Rooms. 
Saturday, March 26— Crystal Palace Spring Flower Show. 
Edited by BRIAN WYNNE, F.R.H.S. 
SATURDAY, MARCH igth, 1892. 
YJlower Shows. —The announcement we 
XT made last week that for the present 
year at least the long established and justly 
celebrated Whitsuntide Flower Show at 
Manchester would be abandoned must 
have brought a strong feeling of regret into 
the minds of many habitual frequenters of 
those shows. Apart from the charm 
which, even to the ordinary horticulturist, 
attached to the inspection of the subjects 
exhibited at a show of this nature, the 
gathering is one of a specially attractive 
kind because of its social aspects, bringing 
as it does many traders, gardeners, and 
amateurs together, who meet perhaps but 
once in the year. 
It is in this sense that flower shows are 
still so much cherished by horticulturists, 
long indeed after they have failed to possess 
any attractions for the general public. 
But the intimation given that the Man¬ 
chester Botanical Gardens are being 
handed over to an entertaining syndicate, 
even if only for a season, while bunging 
exceeding pain to many still serves to show 
how in relation to flower shows the old 
order is changing, and how in regard to 
enjoyments the public is becoming very 
exacting. The proposed International 
Horticultural Exhibition at Earl’s Couit is 
based upon the recognition given by the 
promoters to this fact. They will doubtless 
give first-class displays of horticultural pro¬ 
ducts, but under such diverse and attrac¬ 
tive conditions as will make all old-fashioned 
or ordinary flower shows seem of very 
small account indeed. 
At York, Shewsbury, Southampton, Wol¬ 
verhampton, and some other places, the 
need for a greater range of attractions at 
flower shows than a mere band of music is 
fully recognised, and at those exhibitions 
the public assemble in their thousands. 
It will be well if promoters of flower shows 
everywhere will recognise this broad re¬ 
quirement on the part of the public, and do 
all that is possible to make their exhibitions 
attractive. Whether we like it or not, it is 
much better for horticulture that flower 
shows should be held in conjunction with 
popular entertainments than that we 
should Jose the shows altogether for the 
lack of popular support. 
^The Market Plant Trade. —One of the 
^ remarkable statements made in Mr. 
John Will’s paper on House Plants, read at 
the Drill Hall meeting on the 8th inst.,was 
that whereas some twenty years ago there 
were only some thirty market plant growers 
about London, now there are three hun¬ 
dred. Naturally by far the larger number 
of these are found within a radius of twenty 
miles of the metropolis, because the de¬ 
mand in London is far greater than is the 
case elsewhere. But we may add certainly 
many more to this large total found in other 
parts of the kingdom, hence it is evident 
that the market plant trade has become an 
enormous one. 
Whilst we have no branch of the trade 
in association with which can be found 
more skill in plant culture displayed, in no 
branch is there found less of sentiment. 
Plants are grown not for love or for admira¬ 
tion but solely to sell. They are treated sim¬ 
ply as articles of merchandise, and to the 
growers of no more value than is found in 
pounds, shillings, and pence. Happily we 
have very much of plant culture which 
does foster sentiment—for if we did not 
learn to love those we produce, and so at¬ 
tentively cultivate. gardening would lack 
its chief charm. The market plant grower 
serves a useful purpose in the world, but 
after all his work is not in the best sense 
gardening, although he puts into it the 
highest cultural skill. 
The market plant growers’ vocation has 
been called into existence less perhaps from 
pure love for flowers than through a desire 
on the part-of the wealthy to create dis¬ 
play and thus gratify a taste for show and 
ornamentation, which may be very profit¬ 
able to plant growers but is none the less 
unpleasing. Happily we have still 
myriads among us to whom show is of 
little concern, but who do love and appre¬ 
ciate plant and floral beauty. These after 
all constitute the backbone of British 
horticulture,and to them do we look for the 
perpetuation of that real garden lore which 
has for so long marked civilised nations. 
f arden Produce Markets. —It is now 
most certain that the recent County 
Council of London Election has given a 
strong impetus to the demand bt ing made 
not only for the destruction of market 
monopolies but also for the establishing of 
numerous public markets for the read} sale 
of all sorts of land produce, in all parts of 
the metropolis. How far the action of so 
important a body may react upon other 
