March 28th, 1885, 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
467 
Special Warrant to H.R.K. the Prince of Wales. 
LAWN B RASS 
SEEDSMEN 
By 
Royal 
Warrant 
To 
Her Majesty 
The Queen, 
PRIZE 
AWARDED 
The Diplome d’Honneur, Amsterdam, 1883. 
The Special Gold Medal, Melbourne, 1880. 
SUTTON’S 
EVERGREEN MIXTURES 
SPECIALLY PREPARED FOR 
Garden Lawns, 
Tennis Lawns, 
Cricket Grounds. 
PRICES. 
Sutton’s Mixture for Garden f Per bushel, 25s. Od. 
Lawns and CroquetGrounds 1 ,, gallon, 3s. 3d. 
Sutton’s Mixture for Tennis f Per bushel, 22s. 6d. 
Lawns and Bowling Greens 1 „ gallon, 3s. Od. 
Sutton's Mixture for Cricket f Per bushel, 22s. 6d. 
Grounds. (_ ,, gallon, 3s. Od. 
63T So%c 3 bushels per acre to form new Lawns, or 1 bushel 
per acre to improve an existing sward. 
Tour new plot of Grass is perfection itself, I don’t 
think I have ever seen better.”—J. C. FOX, Esq., Royal 
Horticultural Society, South Kensington. 
The new Lawn made with Messrs. Sutton’s Grass Seeds 
has been a wonderful success. Everyone who sees it is 
astonished to find that it was only sown last May.”—Mrs. 
CRESSWELL, Momey Cross. 
“ Your Grass Seeds have quite surpassed anything ever 
seen about here before. My employer desired me to express 
his pleasure in plaving on such a close sward of sown grass.” 
—Mr. J. MCINTOSH, Gardener to W. Lowson, Esq., 
Taymount. 
1 X have a wonderfully good Tennis Lawn from the seed 
supplied by you Iasi season. Although only sown the 
second week in May, the Lawn was actually played upon 
the first week in August.”—T. W. FORESHEW, Esq., 
Witney. 
SUTTON’S 
PAMPHLET OH THE FOKMATIOH AHD 
IIPROYEMEHT of LAWHS from SEED 
May be had GRATIS and POST FREE on application. 
Seedsmen by Royal Warrant to H.M. the Queen, 
AND ALSO THE IMRSI SEEDSMEN BY SPECIAL WARRANT 
to H.R.H. the Prince op Wales, 
READING. 
“ Gardening is the purest of human pleasures, and the greatest 
refreshment to the spirit of man.”—B acon. 
C|e Ikrknmg Morlfr. 
SATURDAY, MARCH 28 m, 1885. 
Flower Shows. — We are now on the eve of 
the Flower Show season of the present year ; 
and without doubt we shall see universally 
almost reproductions at these Shows of what we 
have seen for the past twenty years or so. It is 
true we can hardly hope for much variety in any 
sense, and the lack of it is just as apparent in 
agricultural, poultry, dog, and similar exhibitions. 
Still this eternal monotony at Flower Shows is 
distressing, and in time tells disastrously upon 
many of them. When visitors learn to know 
beforehand exactly what they will see, it is most 
evident that interest, the great motive power in 
producing an attendance on the part of the public, 
is lacking. 
Curiously enough, we show almost less of 
variety in conception and of originality in the 
arrangement of a Flower Show than in anything 
else. If a new Show be promoted, the originators 
almost always model their schedule of prizes upon 
that of some other Show, and thus it comes about 
that one Show is almost as like another as two 
Peas. That would, however, be endurable were 
the Show seen by diverse persons every year, but 
that is not the case, and as the schedule of one 
year is always a counterpart, or nearly so, of the 
schedule of previous years, the Shows in each 
locality soon become reproductions of their former 
selves, almost in their entirety. Thus it becomes 
certain, even before the Show is held, that “A” 
will take the first prizes for Fuchsias, Ferns, 
Begonias, and some one or two other things ; 
that “B” will have the best Grapes, Apples, 
Potatos, and vegetables ; and that “ C ” will 
have the best things in other classes, just because 
these exhibitors have not only bad the best of 
these respective things in previous years, but also 
because the schedule is most considerately and 
carefully arranged to that end. It is in such 
things that “A,” “B,” and “ C ” are strong, and 
these things must appear from year to year. 
With such modes of procedure no wonder that 
in many cases horticulture is literally strangled 
by this lack of interest in its more modern or 
interesting features. It should always be the 
object of the promoters of a Show to create some 
special element or elements of interest and of 
novelty every year, and thus give to exhibitors 
and to horticulture a renewed stimulus. What 
would not habitues of Flower Shows give for some 
new form of plant-decorative effect, which should 
take the place of the stereotyped decorative 
groups which are duplicated, not only from year 
to year, hut during the same year, at hundreds of 
Shows. These made a novel and an attractive 
break in the monotony of Shows when first intro¬ 
duced, but we have seen the best efforts in that 
direction so often that we look in vain for any¬ 
thing better. 
It is true the managers of Shows almost always 
prescribe a certain form of group, and thus 
originality of effect is nipped in the hud. Will 
some committee invite competition for the most 
novel and striking arrangement of plants, such 
as, whilst pleasing, shall yet show the greatest 
divergence from the stereotyped Flower Show 
decorative group ? Our exhibitors are in the 
main good plant growers. Surely they are not 
all lacking in the power to devise some really 
original yet effective arrangement. But if we 
take even more pretentious Shows than rural 
ones are, we find quite as much that is monoto- 
nous. Thus the National Auricula, Carnation, 
Bose, Dahlia, Potato, or any similar exhibitions 
will be but reproductions of those of the past 
several years almost to an hair. 
It may not be the fault of the exhibitors, who, 
of course, grow for what classes are invited, but 
still we know almost exactly beforehand at all 
these Shows who will be the chief prize-winners, 
and the nature of their exhibits. The newly- 
formed National Chrysanthemum Society is so 
far showing a desire to be original, to a certain 
extent, but it will need great courage to continue 
in that course, and yet the want of that courage 
has, in the past,caused many once prosperous Shows 
to die of inanition. The public are year by year 
becoming more intelligent, more critical, and more 
exacting, and will decline to patronize exhibitions 
thatcannot offer to themsomeattractiveorinterest- 
ing features. Still farther, it is an evil to keep local 
horticulture running always in one rut, and it is a 
serious evil when such is the lot of national horti¬ 
culture. 
We have, perhaps, generally in the framing of 
Show prize lists rather too much of the pecuniary 
element. If schedules are always to be made to 
suit what certain growers can produce, we shall 
hope for little effort in the direction of change ; 
but if that element be subdued in favour of the 
higher one—of the progress of horticulture—then 
schedules will be framed to create new interest, 
new attractions, and fresh advancements that 
will prove most welcome, 
-- 
Herbaceous Calceolarias. —Those who at 
this season of the year have to find accommoda¬ 
tion for their Calceolarias in a greenhouse will 
find them liable to attacks of green fly. There is 
this advantage in having Calceolarias in a cold* 
frame, that you can give them plenty of air, and 
allow a free current to pass among and over the 
plants without doing them any injury, provided 
it is not too cold. It is different in the case of a 
greenhouse, as, when the structure is filled with 
plants of a mixed character, some of a much 
more tender character than the others, it is 
difficult to give air freely. There is some difficulty 
in fumigating with tobacco-smoke, but when 
resorted to, the smoke does not always find its 
way to the insects located between the leaves, and 
if they can establish themselves, they soon make 
great headway. It is well to have ready for use 
some tobacco-water with which to wash the 
infested leaves. A small quantity can be kept in 
a basin, and by means of a brush, or a piece of 
sponge, it can be applied and the insects washed 
away. Calceolarias are often kept in far too dry 
an atmosphere at this season of the year, and 
when this is so, red spider as well as green fly 
affect them, and the plants become much dis¬ 
figured. Of the value of the Calceolaria as a 
decorative plant there cau be no doubt, and there 
should be a fitting balance between foliage and 
flowers—both should be very good. 
Winter or Spring. —The heavy coating of 
snow which covered the face of nature when we 
rose from our beds on Sunday morning last, must 
have destroyed the pleasing illusion under which 
many had laboured that grim winter, for the 
present at least, had departed. Not that snow is 
productive of any material harm to garden-work, 
or, indeed, to plants. There used to be an oft- 
quoted aphorism that snow was a providential 
visitation, sheltering the tender plants] from the 
