360 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
February 8, 1890. 
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The Rev. G. Jeans on the Philosophy of 
Florists’ Flowers. —III. 
“I hope you are a botanist; I know some eminent 
florists who are so, and more than one really good 
botanist who duly appreciates floriculture. But as the 
agriculturist is proverbially a despiser of his garden, 
because of the larger results he is accustomed to deal 
with in his farm, so it is oftentimes with the botanist, 
and, therefore, I must have a word with him. 
“ III.—His objection is not likely to become general, 
because it involves some labour to be bestowed on the 
subject before its force will be perceived. But yet I 
have heard it oftener than might be expected, probably 
because the outlines of every science are now so 
generally known. It is to the effect that floriculture 
(I mean that of fancy flowers) is, as a study, a descent 
from nature, and a degradation to it; and as an art, is 
essentially unscientific, and fit only for children. Our 
whole system, he says, is conversant about varieties— 
things of small account in any case ; while such as we 
covet ought not to exist at all, departures as they are, he 
says, from nature, and interferences with the habits of 
the plants. 
“ That these charges should be made in good faith 
by those who only see floriculture irom their super¬ 
cilious distance is not surprising, since there is an 
appearance of the truth in them ; but that they will 
not stand examination will be admitted by those who 
maintain that there is no foundation for the preceding 
remarks. However, they require, and they deserve, a 
more particular notice appropriated to themselves. 
“ It is not contended that the labours of the florist 
ought to be placed in the same rank with those of a 
botanist. We do not pretend that our pursuit is not 
of an inferior order to his ; indeed, it arises out of and 
is dependent on it. But we cannot allow that it is 
either unnatural or unscientific, nor even that its own 
peculiar science, in the smaller area to which it is 
confined, is not to the full as perfect and as pure as 
that of botany. The comprehensive survey of nature is 
his ; the improvement of a few of the units out of his 
catalogue is ours ; and to inquire into the best method 
of doing this may be found to demand scientific know¬ 
ledge as high as that required for the more extended 
field of observation in discriminating between orders 
and genera, and the resemblances and differences of 
plants. , 
“Few who have not previously paid attention to the 
subject can have read Mr. Story’s interesting articles 
on the hybridisation of the Erica ( Florist , i., 314), with¬ 
out perceiving that, for the successful pursuit of that 
practice, more of knowledge and thought, and judgment, 
as well as of skill and patience, is required than he 
expected ; that less is due to chance and more to 
system ; that a collection of facts, and a comparison of 
results are needed, and arising out of this a suitable 
variation of method according to circumstances ; in 
other words, that it demands a scientific adaptation of 
means to produce a desired end. And it will presently 
be my business to show that this desired end itself is 
equally founded on physical facts, and reducible to rule; 
and that the alterations sought by florists in the petals 
and habits of certain flowering plants are no more open 
to the objections of the scientific botanist, than they 
are to those which have already been considered. 
“ Neither is it justly alleged that either the end or 
the means used to attain it are unnatural. We are 
told, for instance, that the many thousand varieties of 
our Roses are, botanically, the same individual under 
so many thousands of fantastic dresses, and none of 
them natural, or conducive to the welfare of the species, 
or the more perfect development of its parts. On the 
contrary, that the greater number of them can never 
perfect their seeds, owing to the production of double 
flowers by the conversion of stamens into petals. 
This might have some weight, but it entirely rests on 
a fallacy, which it is of some importance to notice. 
The Rose was not made for itself, nor is its place in 
creation only to produce seeds or to propagate its kind. 
It is a misunderstanding of the goodness of the Creator 
to overlook the fact that, like ourselves and every other 
part of God’s work, it is made for others as well as 
itself, and that one part of its design was to please the 
eye of the beholder, as of fruits to please the palate of 
the eater. Why, else, the otherwise useless enlargement 
of the petals of many—their elegant forms, their varied 
and brilliant colours ? No one can say that any of these 
things minister—except in a small and questionable 
degree—to the welfare of the plant or of its seeds, any 
more than the grateful scent of the Mignonette or of the 
Violet does to theirs, or the lusciousness of the drupe 
of the Apricot or of the Peach does to theirs. These 
additions to the necessary parts of fructification were 
for the sole advantage of others ; those that please the 
eye or the smelling seem to have been made for the sole 
pleasure of man, and it appears to have been the purpose 
of God in them to minister to his gratification alone. 
And if some species of flowers are found by experience 
to be capable of developing by cultivation greater 
powers of pleasing the eye than are possessed by the 
uncultivated natural specimen, there is nothing un¬ 
natural in pushing that development as far as it will 
go, and thus bringing forth into light the extent to 
which it was meant to fulfil that particular purpose of 
its creation. 
“ That the arts used for this purpose are not un¬ 
natural may be seen in the analogous instance of 
cultivated fruits. The Apple, for instance, is one of 
those trees whose seed is in itself. Around that seed 
is a fleshy envelope, pleasant to the eye, fragrant to 
the smell and good for food, none of which qualities 
add to the perfection or security of the seed, but are 
intended for the use and gratification of men and 
animals. But this is not so with all the produce of 
those seeds of the tree, or anything like it. Sow the 
seeds, and under the most favourable circumstances, 
not above one in 500 of the plants that spring from 
them can be expected to be worth cultivating for its 
own fruit. Are all the rest then useless ? By no 
means. They are for an important purpose, in the 
economy of man’s sustenance from the fruits of the 
field. They undergo (by grafting) an operation much 
more startlingly unnatural at first view than is the 
hybridisation of the Erica, and the Crab stock is made 
to sustain the bearing wood of choicer kinds instead of 
its own,— 
“ Miraturque novas frondes, et non sua poma,” * 
while the plants that spring from the successful seeds 
become the parents of new varieties, as numerous as 
those of the Ranunculus or the Pelargonium. This 
apparently unnatural process is both natural and neces¬ 
sary ; and as the time when it was first practised is 
hidden in the mists of the remotest antiquity ; and as 
it was anciently in use among nations unconnected with 
each other ; and as each ascribed the discovery to its 
founder or to some god, it is probable that it was 
taught of God to our first fathers, when the original 
curse upon the ground and all its productions, for 
man’s sin, made labour the condition of his bread. 
“ This is rendered the more probable by the distinct 
claim made in Isaiah xxviii., 23-29, for the teaching 
of the art of husbandry to man by the Creator— 
an art which supplies us with a still stronger instance 
in point than the foregoing. 
The most useful, or rather necessary, of all vegetable 
productions to man, the Cerealia (plants which pro¬ 
duce the “ breadstuffs ” of the American vocabulary), 
appear to be almost all of them of the class most 
abhorrent to the botanist— hybrids. At least the native 
original of many of them is, I believe, unknown, 
and of others would not be recognised except by 
a botanist. Cultivation during the course of 4,000 
years, and a care bestowed upon improving the seed, 
like that which the florist practises upon the Fuchsia 
or the Calceolaria, have made them what they now are. 
There can, therefore, be nothing unnatural in the art 
which has brought into being, or, at least, to its 
present state of perfection, the staff of human life. 
“And if the end aimed at in improving the petals of 
a Dianthus be of less importance to the welfare of man 
than in improving the seed of a Carex, yet the mode by 
which it is effected being the same in both cases, what 
is right in the one case cannot be wrong in the other. 
If it is not unnatural in the fruit, neither is it in the 
flower. The art is in perfect analogy with all the 
other consequences of our condition as children of 
Adam—a condition which requires at our hands a 
laborious compulsion on nature to yield up to our 
importunities the riches it is entrusted with for our 
use.” 
Exit the yellow Carnation ! Enter the Rev. George 
Jeans ! For this seems to be the present phase of the 
discussion initiated by Mr. Dean ; and as recruits are 
coming in to him, he need no longer despair of being in 
a minority of one. “ W. L. W.” and Mr. Ranger 
Johnson admit some of his contentions, but both are 
apparently fearful, as though almost convinced, and 
yet too timid to acknowledge as much. It would seem 
as if the whole conservative force in floriculture was 
arrayed against Mr. Dean ; and a harmless and purely 
* “ And wonders at the strange foliage, and fruit not its own.’’ 
legitimate proposal has been magnified into a furious 
charge along the whole floricultural line. But the 
opener of the debate is pretty well forgotten, and the 
full force of the indignation of the high priests of 
floriculture falls upon my head. 
We are hearing a good deal about the opinions of the 
Rev. George Jeans ; but I should think that with the 
probable exceptions of the Rev. F. D. Horner and Mr. 
Dodwell, no one else is intimately acquainted with the 
series of papers known as combining the Philosophy of 
Florists’ Flowers. They appeared, as you have stated, 
about forty years ago in the Florist, and they were 
reproduced in the Florist and Pomologist in 1878, by 
the late Mr. Thomas Moore. In my opinion they are 
very abstruse reading, and I think an analytical mind 
is required to comprehend them. However, as you 
have thought well to reprint them, on this point your 
readers can judge for themselves. But as the white- 
ground Carnations were classified ere these papers 
appeared, and the Rev. George Jeans made no objection, 
I cannot see why his opinions should be put forward 
as in any way opposed to Mr. Dean’s proposal. 
I am not in anyway opposed to Mr. Jeans’ philosophy, 
and I do not attack him. I say that his papers have 
no bearing upon the simple question of the suggested 
classification of the yellow-ground Carnations. What 
might be expedient in our day, might not have been so 
forty years ago ; and after all, notwithstanding what 
the Rev. F. D. Horner states to the contrary, we, as 
florists, are influenced by our present environments. 
We see a taste springing up for certain types of flowers, 
single Chrysanthemums, single and Cactus Dahlias, &c., 
that is a growing force in horticultural sentiment, and 
that because of their decided and universally recognised 
value in floral decorations. I do not care about them, 
but it is of no use for me as a florist to bury my head, 
ostrich-like, in the sands of mere protest, because no 
protest is available to stem the flowing tide. What 
grieves me, is to see our recognised leaders in flori¬ 
culture—men like Mr. Dodwell and the Rev. F. D. 
Horner—standing up for the hard and fast floricultural 
lines of half a century ago ; and apparently as deaf 
and blind to the movement going on around us. The 
number who grow Auriculas and Carnations after the 
standard of the florist, is, I grieve to say, if anything, 
a declining one. There is not a gardening paper but 
reproves our want of expansiveness ; and it is the 
gardening papers of the day which influence public 
sentiment, and not the forty-year-old essays of the 
Rev. Geo. Jeans. 
I have carefully read everything that has appeared 
in the pages of The Gardening World against the 
proposals of Mr. Dean. I still think he is right, and 
as an ardent lover of the Carnation I give him what 
support I can, though I find myself in regretful opposi¬ 
tion to the reverend fathers of floricultural orthodoxy. 
Fair Play. 
Carnation, Duke of Fife. 
This comparatively new variety is evidently a very 
strong grower and a suitable kind for winter flowering. 
A batch of plants may be seen in one of the cool 
houses devoted to this and other allied plants, or 
subjects requiring similar treatment, in the nursery of 
Mr. T. S. Ware, Hale Farm, Tottenham. The plants 
in question are grown in 24-sized pots at one end of the 
house, and are both the brightest and most floriferous 
of all. The stems rise to a height of 3i ft., and give 
off branches all along their sides, but most freely at 
the top, where the shoots bear a large number of 
flowers of a brilliant red. They are of good size, fully 
double, moderately fragrant, and the petals are broad, 
rounded, and moderately deeply toothed at the margins. 
The main stems are robust, and the glaucous foliage is 
equally so. Growers, as a rule, prefer plants of 
moderate height and close bushy habit, but the bold 
effect of the variety under notice cannot be ignored for 
conservatory work in winter. 
Pruning the Mar£chal Niel. — I was much 
pleased with the interesting paper in a late issue, 
on “Pruning Roses,” by the Rev. A. Foster-Melliar, 
and especially with his comments on Marechal Niel 
under glass. He seems to have almost hit upon 
the same method of treating this variety that I have 
adopted for some years, and which 1 have thought of 
describing, with illustrations, in a pamphlet. I do not 
know if any of our scientists have discovered the cause 
of cankering in this Rose, which is one of the greatest 
drawbacks to its cultivation under glass; nor have I 
learnt that any of them have discovered a preventive 
remedy.— /. B. Jones, The Grange Gardens, Ellesmere. 
