July  18,  1896. 
JOURNAL  OF  HORTICULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER. 
53 
soon  as  it  could  be  obtained  our  forefathers  delighted  to  gather  it. 
They  hung  the  Hawthorn  over  their  doorways,  or  they  placed  it  in 
their  apartments  for  its  beauty  and  fragrance.  One  of  our  oldest 
poets,  Chaucer,  describes  the  maying  parties  in  the  fourteenth 
century.  Hawthorn  being  prominent  amongst  the  flowers  brought 
home,  and  the  Greeks  carried  branches  of  it  at  bridal  festivities. 
All  the  poets  agree  that  no  tree  is  so  suitable  for  friends  to  sit 
near  or  under  as  a  Hawthorn.  How,  then,  can  we  explain  this 
contradictory  idea  about  its  ominous  character  ?  I  believe  there 
has  been  somehow  a  transference  to  this  species  of  the  evil  repute 
which  attached  to  the  Blackthorn  or  Sloe,  a  shrub  not  regarded 
with  favour.  Its  flowering  indicated  what  people  called  the 
“  Blackthorn  winter,”  a  period  of  spring  often  cold  and  unsettled, 
more  trying  to  the  health  than  the  depth  of  winter,  and  the  plant 
represented  “  difficulty,”  perhaps  because  its  blooming  seemed  to  be 
an  effort.  From  the  Pimpernels,  species  of  the  Primrose  tribe,  we 
have  an  instance  of  plants  so  much  liked  that  they  received  the 
Latin  name  of  Anagallis,  expressive  of  the  fact  that  the  sight  of 
them  gave  pleasure,  whether  they  were  seen  by  waysides,  along 
fields,  or  in  gardens.  The  blue  Pimpernel  has  long  been  a  garden 
favourite,  so,  too,  the  little  scarlet  species  that  grows  wild,  and  has 
received  the  name  of  the  Shepherd’s  Weatherglass,  being  a  correct 
indicator  of  the  weather  during  the  forenoon. — J.  R.  S.  C. 
DEATH  OF  MR.  JOHN  WILLS. 
By  the  death  of  Mr.  John  Wills,  which  occurred  on  the  9bh  iast.,  a 
very  remarkable  man  has  passed  away — a  man  who  was  a  working 
gardener  in  the  recollection  of  many  of  our  readers,  and  who  was 
eventually  honoured  with  the  personal  friendship  of  the  Prince  of  Wales. 
This  was  obtained  during  an  international  exhibition  at  Paris,  in 
which  His  Royal  Highness  was  closely  interested,  and  which  Mr.  Wills 
supported  during  an  entire  season  at  great  cost,  and  as  he  used  to 
say  in  his  genial  manner,  for  the  “glory  and  honour  of  Old  England,” 
and  whatever  may  be  said  of  him,  this  cannot  be  asserted — that  John 
Wills  was  a  “  little  Englander,”  and,  moreover,  he  was  invested  with  the 
Legion  of  Honour  of  France.  At  Versailles,  in  1878,  he  accomplished  a 
great  feat,  winning  the  grand  prize  of  honour  (a  8evres  vase,  value 
800  francs),  as  well  as  fifteen  first  prizes  and  one  second  in  the  sixteen 
classes  in  which  he  competed. 
Mr.  Wills,  as  all  know,  made  himself  famous  as  a  floral  decorator 
in  London,  and  no  undertaking  in  that  line  was  too  great  for  him  ; 
but  before  this  he  was  for  several  years  a  genuine  British  gardener,  and 
was  as  intimately  acquainted  with  the  practice  of  growing  vegetables 
and  fruit,  and  as  proud  to  acknowledge  it,  as  he  was  of  his  skill  as  an 
hybridiser  in  his  early  days  and  as  a  decorator  during  the  subsequent 
period  of  his  life.  For  some  time  prior  to  his  death  he,  in  consequence 
of  gradually  failing  strength,  practically  retired  from  active  professional 
duties,  the  business  with  which  he  was  connected  being  conducted  by 
his  partner,  Mr.  Segar. 
During  his  long  and  busy  life  Mr.  Wills  seldom  for  long  worked  in 
obscurity,  and  may  be  said  to  have  been  “  before  the  public  ”  for  more 
than  thirty  years.  He  was  born  at  Chardstock,  Somersetshire,  and  his 
first  gardening  experience  was  gained  at  Cricket  St.  Thomas,  the  seat  of 
Viscount  Bridport,  and  he  subsequently  became  a  welcome  guest  of  the 
family.  He  came  to  London  a  mere  youth,  without  any  introductions, 
and  found  employment  in  the  neighbourhood  of  St.  John’s  Wood, 
eventually  finding  a  situation  as  gardener  in  the  vicinity.  He  subsequently 
procured  a  situation  near  Sydenham,  but  left  it  and  assisted  in  navvy 
work  in  the  formation  of  the  grounds  at  the  Crystal  Palace.  He  was 
there,  as  he  used  to  say,  promoted  to  “  artistic  work  ”  in  the  building, 
and  spent  about  a  month  “scraping  and  polishing  a  bronze  horse,  as 
happy  as  a  sandboy.”  But  it  was  not  gardening,  and  he  wished  to 
get  back  to  the  spade.  In  this  he  succeeded,  as  he  found  employment 
under  Mr.  Eyles  in  the  formation  of  the  Royal  Horticultural  Society’s 
Gardens  at  South  Kensington.  There  must  have  been  some  character 
in  the  then  young  man,  for  he  attracted  the  attention  of  Dr.  Lindley, 
who  recommended  him  to  Sir  Philip  Egerton  as  the  successor  of  Mr. 
Robert  Errington,  who  was  gardener  at  Oulton  Park  for  thirty  years, 
and  one  of  our  most  competent  writers  on  hardy  fruit,  dying  in  1860. 
It  was  at  Oulton  Park  that  Mr.  Wills,  stimulated  by  the  renowned 
Donald  Beaton,  commenced  the  crossing  of  various  kinds  of  plants 
with  the  object  of  raising  new  varieties.  He  raised  many  ;  indeed, 
many  hundreds,  of  which  the  world  knew  nothing,  but  some  have 
survived,  and  are  favourites  in  the  London  parks  and  various  gardens  to 
the  present  day.  Amongst  these,  though  it  is  by  no  means  generally 
known  that  he  was  the  originator,  are  the  dwarf  golden-leaved  Pelar¬ 
gonium  Robert  Fish  and  the  not  less  distinct  Golden  Harry  Hieover.  He 
was,  if  we  mistake  not,  the  originator  of  the  present  section  of  golden 
bicolors,  which  are  traceable,  we  think,  to  his  Beauty  of  Oulton,  Beauty 
of  Calderdale,  and  some  others,  which  were  sent  to  Chiswick  in  1865, 
and  won  the  gold  medal  offered  by  the  Royal  Horticultural  Society  for 
new  varieties  about  that  time.  Tcis  was  his  first  great  prize,  and  he 
wore  the  medal  throughout  his  life. 
Mr.  Wills  was  also  the  first  person  to  effect  an  union  between  the  • 
Ivy-leaved  and  Zonal  sections  of  Pelargoniums.  After  many  failures 
he  at  last  succeeded  in  raising  the  Ivy-leaved  variety  with  large  flowers, 
appropriately  named  Willsi,  which  may  be  said  to  be  the  progenitor  of 
the  beautiful  single  and  double  varieties  now  so  extensively  cultivated. 
This  first  cross  in  the  direction  indicated  gave  him  more  trouble  than 
any  other.  He  applied  pollen  again  and  again,  but  without  effect,  but 
still  persevered  and  succeeded  at  last  in  a  remarkable  way.  After 
exhausting  as  he  thought  all  orthodox  methods  he  had  recourse  to  a 
departure,  and  instead  of  applying  the  pollen  dry  he  thought  he  would 
try  it  wet,  and  therefore  swirled  the  truss  of  the  pollen-bearing  flowers 
in  a  water  trough,  at  the  same  time  without  any  hope  of  the  plan 
succeeding.  To  his  delight,  however,  it  did  succeed,  two  plants 
resulting,  and  it  may  be  supposed  when  they  flowered  their  raiser  would 
enjoy  some  of  the  happiest  moments  of  his  life. 
Whether  the  peculiar  method  resorted  to  was  suggested  by  his 
syringing  Vines  when  flowering  for  obtaining  a  good  set  of  fruit,  or 
whether  the  drenching  of  the  Pelargonium  pollen  led  to  syringing  the 
Vine  flowers,  we  know  not,  but  so  far  as  we  are  aware,  Mr.  Wills  was 
the  first  to  advocate  the  latter  method  during  a  controversy  in  our 
columns  in  these  words  : — “  Perhaps  Mr.  Whittle  will  think  me  mad 
when  I  tell  him  that  for  many  kinds  of  Grapes  the  most  proper  time  to 
syringe  is  when  the  Vines  are  in  flower,  for  the  purpose  of  causing  them 
to  set  freely,  especially  Lady  Downe’s  and  Muscat  of  Alexandria.” 
FIG.  8. — MR.  JOHN  WILLS. 
Another  writer  has  claimed  the  method  as  his  own,  but  that  was 
subsequent  to  the  publication  of  the  words  we  have  cited. 
At  the  time  when  Mr.  Wills  was  gardener  at  Oulton  Park,  which  he 
left  towards  the  end  of  1865  to  take  charge  of  the  gardens  of  Captain 
Le  Gendre  Page  Starkie,  also  during  the  time  he  was  at  Huntroyde 
Park,  he  was  on  the  contributors’  staff  of  the  Journal  of  Horticulture^ 
and  wrote  voluminously  on  a  variety  of  subjects.  He  was  generally 
engaged  in  some  controversy,  and  was  beyond  question  a  doughty 
literary  warrior.  He  fought  for  Viola  cornuta  as  a  bedding  plant 
against  all  comers,  and  would  never  admit  defeat,  which  in  fact  he  did 
not  sustain  on  that  subject,  and  perhaps  very  few  others.  He  was  the 
first  to  proclaim  the  fame  of  the  Garston  Grapes,  and  to  describe  the 
methods  of  Mr.  Meredith.  So  zealous  was  he  in  acquiring  knowledge 
that  he  would  go  any  distance  to  see  a  notable  feat  in  cultivation,  and 
not  rest  satisfied  till  he  got  a  mastery  of  the  methods  by  which  the 
results  that  he  admired  were  brought  about.  This  was  what  made  his 
reports  of  famous  gardens  not  only  interesting  but  useful,  for 
information  could  be  gleaned  from  all  of  them. 
He  was  not  long  at  Huntroyde  before  he  commenced  telling  the 
world  of  his  plans  for  improving  the  gardens,  and  the  methods  he 
intended  to  adopt,  and  which  he  carried  out.  It  was  there  that  he 
conceived  the  idea  of  “  stratified  ”  Vine  borders,  and  had  to  defend  his 
practice  against  some  of  the  best  men  of  the  day.  This  he  did  with 
great  zest  and  evident  enjoyment.  He  appeared  to  court  opposition, 
and  always  met  it  with  alacrity  and  in  a  good-humoured  way.  When 
he  conceived  a  plan  and  felt  it  was  right,  neither  labour,  cost,  adverse 
criticism,  nor  ridicule  could  turn  him  aside  from  its  prosecution ;  nor  was 
he,  to  use  a  well-understood  term,  a  “  kid-glove”  gardener,  but  a  worker, 
and  seemed  to  be  as  happy  in  a  drain  as  in  crossing  flowers,  arranging 
plants,  or  in  any  other  light  duties  of  his  vocation. 
His  determination  to  have  work  done  well  came  out  in  his  narrative  of 
draining  the  Huntroyde  Gardens,  for  this  is  what  he  wrote  at  the  time  : — 
“  When  1  drained  the  gardens,  either  from  ignorance  or  some  other 
cause  the  men  would  not  put  the  pipes  in  the  proper  way,  so  I  was 
obliged  to  jump  into  the  drain  and  lay  the  pipes  myself.  It  was  only  by 
these  means  that  I  was  able  to  get  the  gardens  drained  thoroughly.  I 
stuck  to  the  drainers  three  weeks,  until  I  had  the  whole  of  the  kitchen 
