188 
THE FLORIST’S JOURNAL. 
FLORICULTURAL INTELLIGENCE. 
It gives us great pleasure to notice that this year a very decided improve¬ 
ment has taken place in the Floricultural Exhibitions, both metropolitan and 
provincial. Formerly, and long before the commencement of our labours in 
this journal, we were of opinion that the common Flower Shows rather injured 
than promoted the true art of Floriculture. They appeared to us to he got up 
by an interested clique or junto for such Society, during the period of its 
existence, which was often a very brief one ; and the main objects seemed to be 
to get the flowers of the clique praised and brought into notice, and the owners 
gratified with tea-pots, snuff-boxes, and other small wares. In those days we 
fancied, or at all events feared, that the Horticultural Society was not entirely 
free from a slight leaning toward this conduct. It is true that, without funds 
derived from the public, the Society could not be carried on ; and it is perhaps 
equally true, that without prizes of some description or other, the more expe¬ 
rienced growers could not be made to attend. But all these are, or ought to 
be, in their nature mere supplementary matters, somewhat like a go-cart and 
leading-strings to a child, or a pole to a sapling ; and when an establishment 
acquires such strength as that it is able to go on of itself, or stand on its own 
legs, it is much better without them. It is true that there is a considerable 
difference between the prizes awarded by the Horticultural Society and those 
which used to be, and we believe still are, given to members of the clubs 
alluded to. These last were generally articles of some domestic utility, such 
as a tankard or a tea-pot, a pair of sugar-tongs or a spoon ; while the awards 
by the Horticultural are honorary medals, not so well adapted for being dis¬ 
played and boasted of by women and children ; and besides, implying that the 
contest is for gloiy, not for gain, at least in the domestic value of the prizes. 
This is decidedly an improvement: and it w r ould be a greater improvement 
still if these honorary tokens were taken in bronze or white metal, so that 
their pecuniary worth might be next to nothing. As it is, we think that we 
can perceive a very beneficial effect resulting from this improvement in the 
way of prizes. The impulse to Floriculture is becoming greater and greater 
every year ; and in so far as the gardens are concerned, die advancement of this 
season above the last seems to be greater than that of any former instance. 
So great has it been, indeed, that the flowers now take the lead on the 
Society’s gala days of exhibition. At one time we thought too much attention 
was given to other kinds of display, and that the plants w T ere but a secondary 
object to many who attended the gardens. Perhaps this was a necessary state 
of things at and near the commencement; for the collecting of immense masses 
of people, many of them of the highest class of society, was a novelty, and not 
a novelty of the kind which used to attract British audiences. It gives us 
great pleasure, however, to think that the result has turned out highly favour¬ 
able to the promotion of Horticulture, and more especially that delightful 
branch of it in which all may to some extent participate—the cultivation of 
flowers. Yfe do not mean that the Horticultural Society has produced the 
whole of this good; but it has set a splendid example, and the result has been 
a new and vigorous impulse which has diffused itself over all the country. 
