190 
THE FLORIST’S JOURNAL. 
flowers, and generally also of fruits and culinary vegetables ; and these are 
not, as in times gone by, confined to certain knots of professional cultivators, 
but all the people of taste take an interest in them ; and amateurs contend 
with professional men as to who shall produce the finest specimens, and thus 
contribute most to the advancement of the art. This is as it should be ; for 
amateurs can, generally speaking, best afford the time and the expense of 
making the requisite experiments by means of which the improvement of tne 
art is led on. Then there is a great advantage in the rivalship of those wealthy 
amateurs : they are rivals in the improvement of plants and their modes of 
treatment, but they are not mercantile rivals. We could, however, mention 
several wealthy and influential parties who allow their gardeners to dispose of 
some part of the product of their skill and industry to nurserymen, which is 
no inconsiderable advantage both to the art and to the public. 
These remarks very naturally suggest themselves when reflecting on the 
great floral exhibitions, especially such as that which took place at the Society s 
Gardens on the 10th of July. The number of exhibitors upon that occasion, 
and the variety and beauty of the subjects exhibited, were such, that even a 
bare list of them would exceed our limits, and the particulars are already 
before the public. We may mention, however, that the number of medals 
given upon that occasion, chiefly for flowers, (for the fruit, though excellent in 
kind, does not admit of so much variety,) was no fewer than one hundred and 
nine. Of these, five were the Gold Knightian, eight the Gold Banksian, 
twenty-four the large Silver, thirty-two the Knightian Silver, and fort) the 
Banksian Silver. So far as we can judge, too, the distribution of these ho¬ 
norary tokens was most impartial, and guided apparently by nothing but the 
fact of showing the finest specimens. The number of professional growers 
that is, of growers for sale—who received medals, was but a fraction ; and the 
number of members so receiving was also comparatively few. The gieat 
majority were awarded to gentlemen’s gardeners, which, of course, contributes 
more to the general diffusion of the love of the art, than if it were to rain gold 
medals upon the profession only. 
Of the subjects shown we have no room to give even a list. At this season 
of the year the flowers in greatest perfection are those of hardy, half-hardy, 
with a few tender shrubs, and also border flowers. The early blossom of the 
more delicate stove plants is about over, and of those which flower later barely 
begun. The season of the bulbous-rooted plants is also, generally speaking, 
over before Midsummer; and the autumnal blooms in the borders have not yet 
come up. Among the choicer herbaceous plants which form a sort of con¬ 
nexion between the early and the late, the Carnation and its relative the Picot- 
tee hold a conspicuous place; and though both of these are old flowers, they 
are flowers which will never get out of date ; and they deserve the estimation 
in which they are held from their fragrance, as w T ell as from the shape, the 
colour, and the exquisite odour, of the flowers. The introduction of autumnal 
roses, and the numerous crosses between them and the roses of the early sea¬ 
son, have given to these flowers a period of bloom of which nothing was known 
in former times. By a little management some of the varieties may be made 
to bloom in the latter part of March, or the early part of April; and what with 
one species, what with another, the_ succession may be kept up until the last 
