July 21, 1894. 
THE GARDENING WORLD 
741 
dealer in the provinces, and subsequently travelled 
for the old firm of Messrs. Peter Lawson & Son, 
which eventually became the Lawson Seed and 
Nursery Company, as a country representative of 
their London Branch. On leaving the Lawsons, in 
1876, he went to the firm of Messrs. Hurst & Son, 
then, as now, the premier house in the wholesale 
seed trade, and for whom he has since travelled all 
Mr. William Atkinson. 
should enjoy the confidence and esteem of such 
troops of friends in the trade. 
Mr. W1LLIA.M Atkinson, 
Mr. Atkinson has the honour to represent the fine 
old firm of Messrs. Fisher, Son and Sibray, of the 
famous Handsworth Nurseries, Sheffield, and is in 
every sense a man of weight among his confreres. 
He has represented the firm now for some 23 years, 
a fact of itself which bears testimony 
alike to his business capacity and his 
popularity as a man, for he is an 
Englishman all over, and of a right good 
sort. He comes of a good old Notting¬ 
ham stock, which runs large in the 
bone, takes on flesh kindly, and brims 
over with good humour and robust com¬ 
mon-sense. 
Mr. Atkinson like his friends Mr. 
Aiton and Mr. Outram, has also been 
associated with horticulture all his busy 
working life, and curiously enough, like 
them he also may be said to owe some¬ 
thing of his success to the sound 
business principles instilled into him 
by the late Mr. B. S. Williams in whose 
nursery he was employed some 26 years 
ago. He had a good schooling in plant 
culture in various places before going 
to Handsworth, and his success as a 
traveller is another illustration of the 
fact that the man who can best sell 
plants is the man who loves them and 
knows most about them, whether, to use 
a homely Yorkshire phrase, he has the 
“ gift of the gab ” or not. 
Mr. Alfred Outram. 
Mr. Outram, the able representative of 
Messrs. B. S. Williams & Son, of Upper 
Holloway, was born at Tooting in Surrey, 
and at a very early age, 13 years, went 
to work in the then famous nurseries of 
Messrs. Rollison & Sons, first washing 
pots, then crocking them, and gradually 
working upwards until he got into 
the order office under the late Mr. 
William Buckley, one of the best 
A TRIO OF TRAVELLERS. 
We have the pleasure to-day of including in our 
pages the portraits of three of the leading represen¬ 
tatives of the purely commercial side of horticulture, 
and who, perhaps between them, may be said to be 
personally acquainted and on the best of terms with 
a greater number of nurserymen, seedsmen, and 
gardeners, in fact horticulturists of all degrees in 
this country, than any similar number 
of travellers that could be named. 
There are travellers and travellers in 
all branches of industry, and in horti¬ 
culture we have had, and have now, 
some of all sorts, as every worthy 
gardener knows. There are travellers 
who are gentlemen by nature, men of 
great experience, wide knowledge, broad 
minds, and generous sympathies, whose 
fair dealing is proverbial, and whose 
fidelity to their employers is above 
reproach ; men whom it is a pleasure to 
meet at any time, and whose regular 
seasonable visits are always welcome. 
Need we say that this is the estimable 
class to which our trio of friends belong. 
Mr. Hugh Aiton. 
Mr. Aiton comes of a good gardening 
stock and bears a surname well known 
in the annals of British horticulture. 
He is the only son of the late Mr. 
John Aiton, a descendant of an old 
Scotch family, who some forty-six years 
ago laid out the extensive and beautiful 
gardens at Enville, near Stourbridge, 
for the late Eail of Stamford and 
Warrington, and who remained at Enville 
until his death in February, i860. Mr. 
Hugh Aiton was apprenticed to the late 
Mr. Chas. Turner, of Slough, in 1858, 
just at the time when the rage for 
florists’ flowers was at its zenith, and 
when Mr. Turner was sending out those 
excellent Peas, the selections of the 
late Dr. McLean, which still hold 
a place in many of our seed lists. 
From Slough Mr. Aiton went to the old 
Mr. Alfred Outram. 
Mr. Hugh Aiton. 
firm of Messrs. Beck, Henderson & Child, of the 
Adelphi, London, at that time doing an extensive 
seed trade in all parts of the country, but long since 
passed out of existence. Then for a short time he 
was with the Royal Horticultural Society, and after¬ 
wards for a few years he was manager of the seed 
business of the late Mr. B. S. Williams, at 
Holloway. Then, in 1868, he went into Norfolk 
with the late Mr. J. Tmgay, of Ellingham, Attle¬ 
borough, at that time the most extensive clover seed 
over the provinces with unvarying success. With 
such a long experience, nay, almost an unique 
experience of the agricultural seed trade, and a 
wide range of knowledge, which, like the elder 
Weller’s knowledge of London, may be said to be 
“extensive and peculiar,” combined with a genial 
presence and most amiable disposition, it is no 
matter for surprise that he so ably holds his own in 
a line of business that requires the possession of 
many virtues to conduct successfully; or that he 
plantsmen of his day, who gave him a good 
drilling in the correct naming and labelling of 
plants. He soon found himself in the propagating 
department, and, liking the work received due 
encouragement from his employers. The late Mr. 
George Rollison was very fond of hybridising Ericas, 
and it was part of Mr. Outram's duty to assist him 
in the work of labelling the crosses. Many are the 
good Heaths still grown which were the result of 
Mr. George Rollison's skill. Other plants then 
