808 
January 14, 1893. 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
FHORICUHTURE. 
New Fancy Pansies. 
It is now about thirty-four years since the first of 
the modern fancy Pansies was introduced from Lille 
in France, and were taken in hand by the writer of 
these notes, and first became known as Belgian 
Pansies; but as this appeared to me to be an 
inappropriate name, I adopted the term “Fancy 
Pansies,” which they still retain. Writing about 
these flowers in the Florist and Pomologist for 
February, 1862, I used these words:—“The old 
familiar sterotyped forms of Pansies, consisting of 
white ground, yellow ground, and self varieties with 
which we have been familiar, are running a great 
risk of finding a powerful rival in public opinion in 
the new and pleasing forms of fancy or Belgian 
Pansies. These are now fast appro ching the 
circular form, combined with the texture and sub¬ 
stance which the stern law of the florists demand 
before they can be admitted into their circle. 
Whether florists will ever recognise the fancy Pansy 
remains to be seen, so completely does it set at 
defiance all recognised rules with regard to colouring, 
but as all do not view flowers with a florist’s eye and 
look more to a diversity of pleasing colours com¬ 
bined with form, I venture to predict for fancy Pansies 
a large amount of popularity, and their recognition as a 
florists' floiver on the exhibition table." 
I wrote these words at a time when the feelings of 
my brother florists were dead against the fancy 
Pansy. But I was a true prophet and the fancy 
Pansy is now one of the most popular flowers of the 
day and a large sum of money is annually expanded 
in the United Kingdom in the purchase of plants. 
Societies for the encouragement of the Pansy exist, 
and in Scotland it may be regarded as a national 
flower, so generally is it cultivated and exhibited 
there. I have now before me a catalogue from a 
leading cultivator in Scotland, in which fifty-two 
new varieties now to be sent out for the first 
time are enumerated, the introductions of five 
well known trade growers in Scotland, and all 
ranging in price from just a few at 3/6 each, but the 
greater number at 5/- per plant. There are, no doubt, 
still other quite new varieties to come from the north, 
and a well known grower in the Midland districts of 
England is sending out for the first time twenty-five 
new varieties at 5/- each. The fact of all these new 
varieties being introduced at one time is in itself an 
abundant proof of the popularity of the fancy Pansy, 
for unless there were buyers it would be folly to go 
to the expense of printing lists of these new sorts. 
Not that it is at all necessary for those who are 
beginners in Pansy culture to get these expensive 
kinds, because a large number of superb varieties 
can be purchased at from 4s. per dozen upwards, for 
after the first year's introduction, the prices drop 
considerably. I do not purpose giving a list of sorts 
here, but rather recommend amateurs to send either 
a list of the sorts they want, or a list of the sorts 
they possess to a respectable florist celebrated for 
Pansies, to select for him at a given price. I recom¬ 
mend the purchase of plants in March or early in 
April, as the autumn has passed away, planting out 
early and firmly provided the plants are strong and 
well rooted. • If on arrival they are seen to be not well 
rooted and strong, then it is best either to pot them 
up in small pots for a week or two, or in a cold frame 
for a few days before planting out. — IF. Dean. 
Hybrid Violas. 
Replying to “Viola’s” question in your issue of 
two weeks ago as to why I term Violetta a hybrid 
Viola, and also wishing to know wherein it differs 
from Duchess of Fife and other varieties, I will 
endeavour to explain what I term a hybrid Viola. 
Supposing we take Duchess of Fife and cross it 
with a wild species of Viola which has not hitherto 
been used in obtaining our ordinary garden varieties, 
and the seedlings obtained be distinct, I would call 
such seedlings hybrids, and as Violetta was obtained 
by crossing one of our old varieties of garden Violas 
with a species of Viola not known to have been 
previously used for crossing purposes, I say that it 
is a distinct hybrid. Duchess of Fife is a sport from 
Goldfinch, which variety is also a sport from Ard- 
well Gem, a yellow self Viola, and the characteris¬ 
tics of Ardwell Gem are quite distinct from Violetta, 
I would call Ardwell Gem a cross-bred Viola, as it 
was obtained from our ordinary varieties without 
the infusion of any distinct variety of Viola which 
its parents did not already possess. In animal and 
bird life the term hybricl is only used when a species 
is crossed in such a way that in the hybrid obtained 
the hybridity ceases, and such hybrids cannot repro¬ 
duce their own or the original species; but with 
flowers of a species Nature has been more generous. 
There is still a great future for the Viola, as there 
are types of it in existence which, if crossed with 
our garden Violas, would alter the appearance of 
the race in robustness, habit, foliage, and flower.— 
Geo. McLeod, Chingford. 
[We suppose, when our correspondent says that 
"in the hybrid obtained the hybridity ceases,” he 
merely meins that the progeny is sterile and can¬ 
not bear young, as in the case of the mule and the 
hinny. This is not the case with ail species of 
animal, however, any more than it applies to all 
species of plant, for some of the hybrid progeny in 
either case are fertile. We should have liked, how¬ 
ever, if Mr. McLeod had said what species of Viola 
was used as the pollen parent in the production of 
Violetta.—E d.] 
-- 
DRESSING CARNATIONS. 
Florists will not be greatly disquieted by the censures 
of a critic who makes the naive confession of the 
Gardener in Council, p. 290, that his “ taste has but 
little distinction for anything that appears good and 
beautiful,” for this of course is just the fundamental 
difference between him and them. It is this faculty 
of discriminating and differentiating amid varied 
orders and degrees of beauty which makes the 
florist, as it is indeed the basis of any connoisseur- 
ship whatever. 
The florist upholds without doubt a high standard 
of excellence in the particular flowers which are the 
subjects of his care, and* he is justified and 
encouraged in so doing by what he has already won 
from Nature. But the effect is to “ place limits ” not 
on perfection but on inferiority and mediocrity. 
Commencing and working with Nature he pays the 
price she demands in labour, patience and skill, happy 
when amid a multitude of lower grade things she 
smiles on him with even one diamond of the first 
water. 
Our critic tells us that any flower which taken as 
a whole is pleasing to his eye represents to him per¬ 
fection. If for “perfection” he will substitute 
“ beauty,” we shall be in perfect accord with him, 
for hardly any flower is there that does not fulfil 
these conditions, and which is not in consequence 
entitled to be called “ beautiful.” But some flowers 
—notably those we call “florist flowers”—show 
greater tendency to vary from seed and greater 
capacity for the development of beauty than others f 
and this variation and development have been carried 
so far, that while no one would deny beauty to forms 
relatively inferior, we cannot, and do not, in the 
face of what we now possess, appraise them at the 
same value. As to “ perfection,” which implies 
finality, no florist thinks to have attained it; he 
knows Nature and her capacity for surprises too well. 
Our critic speaks of “ most beautiful acquisitions” 
being discarded because they have blemishes of form 
or marking. This a little reminds one of the sad 
case of the maiden who would have been “ a perfect 
beauty,” but that unhappily her .face and her figure 
spoiled her. 
Everything is relative, and a flower of the bizarre 
or flake classes where the characteristic excellences 
are symmetry, purity of ground, definiteness of 
markings, and harmony of colour must needs be 
discarded from its class if weak in these respects. 
What is needful is that the flower should have in 
high degree the characteristic excellence of its order. 
And here taste may indulge itself, and those who 
have not so much feeling with the higher develop¬ 
ment of the “class flowers,” may find their taste 
gratified in the “ fancies,” whose strength lies in 
their variety and picturesqueness—elements of 
beauty more readily appreciated by the less educated 
eye. To excellence, pure and simple, the florist is no 
more indifferent than the Gardener in Council—what 
he refuses to do is to mix up the characteristics of 
one class with those of another. He would regard 
this as no more desirable than I dare say the 
Gardener in Council would think pigeon-English the 
perfection of a language. 
Our critic is severe on the subject of dressing, 
which he says renders the flower offensive to his eye, 
and is, he thinks, in every way “ pernicious." I 
wonder whether he has ever seen a fine bizarrre or 
flake Carnation before and after dressing by competi¬ 
tive hands. The dressing of Carnations for exhibition 
is based on the simple principle of the development of 
latent beauty; and so constantly will the most richly 
marked petals be found hidden under others of 
inferior merit, that when blooms are set up in com¬ 
petition full justice could not be done to many of 
them without it. But the objects of the practice 
have been so fully set forth by Mr. Dodwell in his 
work on the Carnation, and more recently by Mr. 
Simonitein the “Carnation Manual,” that there is little 
need to go further into the matter here. The argu¬ 
ment that if Nature had considered dressing necessary 
to perfection she would have done it herself, is one 
that in its application would be prohibitive of every 
art in life. Our Gardener in Council might as well 
tell us that if Nature had thought the process of 
cooking necessary to the development of flavour in 
the potato, she would have presented that esculent 
to us ready peeled and boiled. Our friend is in 
truth a little astray with his philosophy; it is a 
recognised fact of the scheme of Nature that she has 
given man brains and hands to find and work out 
these things for himself. 
The practice of dressing Carnations for exhibition 
has gone on now for the best part of a century, and if 
it had anything “pernicious” in its influence we 
ought to have some evidence of it by this time. 
But we have ample testimony that our flowers have 
in the meantime improved in every way. Strange 
people must be these florists in whose favour the 
ordinary relation of cause and effect would seem sus¬ 
pended, since out of “pernicious” practices they 
evolve health and beauty where logically there 
should have been only deformity and decay.— 
M. Rowan. 
-«*■- 
LOOKING BACK. 
It is not perhaps the proper order of things in these 
go-ahead times to regard retrospective views with 
any large degree of interest or advantage, save only 
to those who may have pleasurably toiled in the 
Great Creator's vineyard from early youth to old 
age. The portrait, however, thus seen by the 
mind's eye is as much valued by them as some of the 
paintings by the old masters, the difference in reality 
being that the one is and the other is not. 
If I trot back in memory to the winter of 1835-36 
I find that my occupation at this very period was 
nailing against a south wall Peaches, Nectarines, 
etc , the weather being similar to the present, but 
with a greater depth of snow. The impression of 
this on my memory is so vivid that really I can 
almost fancy that I am now so engaged. But what 
a marvellous revolution has taken place since those 
old by-gone times, and how many good old honest 
hard-working gardeners and painstaking florists 
have passed away, with all their pet plants on which 
they lavished so much love and attention ? Glass¬ 
houses were not numerous, save in some large 
establishments ; early forcing was carried on for the 
most part by the aid of fermenting materials in 
ranges of pits and frames, which usually were 
started just before Christmas. 
It used to be jolly work, the making up of hot-beds 
for Cucumbers, Melons, Radishes, Potatos, Carrots, 
etc., etc., and the constant attention to the making 
up of linings and renewing them, which involved an 
immense amount of labour. This was before the 
mechanic and the engineer had brought about such 
a mighty development in the ways of heating, but it 
must not be for one moment assumed that gardeners, 
with all their disadvantages, were less happy because 
of their want of knowledge in this respect. No class 
of men were more respected or respectable. I do 
but justice when I affirm that in my opinion there 
existed a social intercourse conducted upon the most 
hospitable principles that it is possible to conceive. 
Miles had in those days to be walked to see and con¬ 
verse with a brother gardener and exchange compli¬ 
ments. There was not even a gardening newspaper 
in my early days. This reminds me that your last 
issue bore the same weekly date as the Gardener's 
Gazette did when first established, viz., the 7th 
January. The Gardener's Gazette made its ap¬ 
pearance in 1837, but although professedly a paper 
to represent the gardeners' interests, it was more an 
organ for the floricultural fraternity, which even at 
that time formed a numerous and important body. 
I commenced with the Gazette in the autumn of 1S37, 
with the Gardener's Chronicle in 1841, and other 
gardening papers as they were subsequently intro¬ 
duced ,—Man of Kent, Lewisham, 
