January 25, 1890. 
THE GARDENING WORLD 
QOfl 
Orj o 
stands for the ordinary competitive exhibitions, which 
were then plentiful, or about to be held all over the 
southern portion of the island. Looking at the 
illustration the stand in the left hand corner was 
filled with incurved varieties, amongst which Empress 
of India, Golden Empress of India, Lord Alcester, 
Golden Queen of England, Alfred Salter and 
Princess of Wales were the finest samples. Next 
in order to it was a box of Japanese varieties, the 
big, fat blooms of which were almost globular in 
many cases. Conspicuous amongst them were Etoile 
de Lyon, Mons. Bernard, E. Molyneux, Sunflower, 
Florence Percy and Avalanche. Then followed six 
THE GARDENERS’ ORPHAN 
FUND. 
As Mr. Barron, the honorary secretary, has so widely 
advertised the making of a considerable number of 
gardeners into life subscribers, that is to say, entitled 
them to all the privileges which any regular annual 
subscriber has, because these persons have assisted in 
promoting some fete or concert in aid of the fund, I am 
tempted to invite reply to the query—Is not that course 
calculated to injure the system of annual subscription, 
by, Jn the first place, deliberately inducing those 
persons thus honoured to withhold personal subscriptions 
henceforth, on the ground that if they continue such 
in the number of votes only.—Ei>.] If the life sub- 
scriberships were given to others, in time there would be 
an army of these honorary members overbearing the 
regular and really meritorious subscribers. 
The system of granting a life subscribership for 
every £5 promiscuously raised seems to me to be unwise 
and unjust. If the system be adhered to, why should 
not I, as an annual 1 Os. subscriber, be entitled to be 
made a life member after ten subscriptions ? My 
regular payments are, after all, more reliable than are 
purely promiscuous efforts. The committee have made 
life membership far too cheap. No sum less than £10 
should purchase so great an honour, and then only 
Mr. Molyneux’s Stands of Chrysanthemums at the Chiswick. Centenary Show. 
other boxes containing representatives of all the leading 
types. Amongst the reflexed varieties were fine blooms 
of CullinglorJi, King of Crimsons, Phidias, Golden, 
and Pink and White Christine. The large Anemones 
included Nelson, Gluck and Fleur de Marie ; the 
Japanese Anemones included Fabian de Mediana, J. 
Weston, and Mademoiselle Cabrol ; fine types of 
Pompons were Golden Marabout, Mrs. Selford, Made¬ 
moiselle EliseDordan, Prince of Orange and Fimbriata; 
and single vaiieties were not overlooked. 
Our illustration was prepared from a beautiful 
photograph taken by Mr. William Mountain, Royal 
Academy Studios, 211, Clapham Road, S.W., who, 
during the last two seasons, has been successful in 
securing a number of cleverly executed photographs of 
groups, &c., at the leading metropolitan exhibitions. 
payments, they derive no benefit from their life sub- 
scriberships ; and secondly by leading annual subscribe rs 
to believe that these favoured persons obtain the full 
privileges of life subscribers without personally con¬ 
tributing much or anything themselves ? 
I say very emphatically that the gardener who 
gives his 5s. or 10.s. yearly is a more useful, as well as 
meritorious member than is he who simply, by the 
aid of others, gets a good sum through a tentative effort, 
and then subsides upon the honours already achieved. 
Assuming that the men whose names are furnished on 
p. 310, as newly-made life subscribers, organise yet 
another or many other fetes or concerts, to give to them 
other life subscribtrships would, of course, be absurd, 
and their interest in the matter so far may be said to 
have ceased. [In such a case they would get an increase 
when paid out of one’s own pocket. Subscriberships, 
granted to those upon whom I have commented, should 
be of limited duration—say at the rate of £1 per year— 
so that a sum of £5 raised by some combined effort 
from the public should create a subscribership for five 
years only. Still, I do not like the system at all, and 
howsoever dealt with, should be with excessive caution 
and judgment. Any system which may tend to check 
personal subscriptions would be a grand mistake. 
Looking over another communication from Mr. 
Barron in The Gardeners' Chronicle, I notice that he 
strongly urges the securing of more annual subscribers, 
but, as I have shown, the committeeseem to be taking the 
course to limit the supply. With respect to the 
funding of so much of the society’s income, to which Mr. 
Barron and Mr. Deal both reply in your contemporary, 
