FLORICULTURAL INTELLIGENCE. 
189 
The time has not long gone by when the few new plants which were sent to this 
country, by persons in the employment of government chiefly, and persons 
who knew or cared little about the science of plants or the means of their cul¬ 
tivation, were huddled into corners, and carefully concealed, not only from 
the British public, hut from British horticulturists. So strictly was this 
system of concealment adhered to, that the first accounts which the country 
received of these new plants were generally in German publications. A plant 
may have been ten or a dozen of years, or more, in its hiding-place; and a 
slovenly mode of culture, in which little or no attention was paid to the native 
habitat, or natural habits, of the plant, may have succeeded in obtaining a 
duplicate; or if the seeds were sent home, little as was known of the proper 
soil and treatment of them, more than one may have germinated. Then the 
duplicate thus obtained was sent as a royal present to some foreign power, 
and published and multiplied there. So that, after a lapse of years, a British 
florist could import from abroad that which originally came to his own country. 
Such a state of things could not fail in repressing whatever love of flowers and 
their cultivation there was in the country, at least in so far as new plants were 
concerned; and thus our florists were confined to the old plants, in the treat¬ 
ment of which they were also excelled by many foreigners. It is true that, 
even in the thickest darkness of this absurd system, the love of Floriculture 
could not be wholly kept down; for there were always some spirited indivi¬ 
duals who, from time to time, sent collectors to such parts of the world as were 
open to them; but instead of encouragement by those in authority, this 
system met with the very reverse. 
The natural consequence was, that very few of the leading people, who could 
best afford the expense, and whose example would have stimulated others, took 
any interest in the matter ; and as the cultivation of flowers is a pleasurable 
more than a profitable pursuit, it followed, by necessary consequence, that while 
the great remained indifferent to it, the body of the people were equally so. 
Now, however, the state of things has changed, and changed greatly for the 
better; and botanical collectors have cooperated with geographers and other 
scientific travellers, in bringing avast number of plants to this country, accom¬ 
panied by faithful accounts of the places where, and the circumstances under 
which, they grow. The effect has been a general desire for new plants, and a 
love of paying proper attention to them: and it is not easy to say how many 
of the coarser means of spending surplus money, which formerly prevailed in 
this country, to such an extent as to make us a byword among foreigners, 
have been rendered unfashionable by the more delightful pursuit of floriculture, 
as it relates to flowers, to fruits, or to plants generally. 
This opens a wide field for contemplation, and a field as delightful as it is 
wide; but, having no room to enter upon it, we must confine ourselves to a mere 
notice of some of the more striking results. 
Among these results we are disposed to give the foremost place to the great 
public exhibitions at the Horticultural Society’s Gardens. At first these were, 
no doubt, effects; but on such subjects, effects, in their turn, become causes. The 
spirit which has thus been produced, whatever may have been the means of its 
production, has become very general; so that there is not a town or district of 
any importance, but which has its horticultural society, and its exhibitions of 
