The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1850-12-03 00:00:00

c.lgrtrulturai anb flortintitural.

Our readers well know the
„pains we have taken to
arouse the public attention-to the value of many of the
old plants of the gardens, which have been thrown otside
as worthless, to make room for new favourites, oftentimes
with much less claims for patronage, indeed too frequently
with no other merit than that of novelty. We are glad
to see another and more-powerful champion of this prin-
ciple in the editor of the Gardener's Chronicle, who, in a
leading article on the 23rd ultimo, justly ridicules the
proverbial fickleness of gardeners. It is a well-known
failing of this gentleman that he is decidedly hobby-hor-
sical, and rarely fails to ride to death any poor animal
whom he may mount. In this case we care not how hard
he may gallop, because the subject is almost inexhaust-
ible, and, from his position, he may possibly turn the
public taste in that direction. The following language, it
will be seen, is little more than a reprint of our own,
which has been often urged upon the Liverpool horticul-
turist :

" Among the many follies which the gardening world
commits, none is more striking to the looker-on than the
eagerness with which old favourites are deserted for new
ones. Of all inconstant lovers, gardeners must surely be
the most inconstant. To-day they are at the feet of a
dahlia, to-morrow there is no beauty like a pansy, and
both are presently deserted for a cineraria. In their eyes
old age is a crime, and aged flowers are mercilessly con-
signed to the poor-house. We remember when Cape
plants were the rage ; a brunsvigia, or an We. or a protea,
were standing toasts : to possess such fair objects was the
height of a man's ambition. But, in a few years, these
were thrown aside, and New Holland beauties supplanted
them ; to be succeeded by the flaunting, or shy and deli-
cate, natives, of Spanish America. If we look to an old
garden catalogue, we can but wonder how the flower-
garden was decorated by our fathers; for there we find
little besides races now known only by name.
"Are these follies to have no end ? Shall we never be
wise enough to look upon all flowers as equal ? Do we
not yet know that what is called the difference in their
attractions is but a difference in our skill in managing
them ? and that they all aro endowed with wondrous
beauty ; varying in kind, but the same in nature ? Most
especially must we enquire whether the arts of the culti-
vator should be limited, as they are, to the domestication
of a few fashionable races, to the entire neglect of the an-
cient inhabitants of the flower garden. A hollyhock is as
showy as a dahlia, infinitely more graceful, easier to cul-
tivate, as prone to run into varieties, and hardy instead of
tender; yet the lumpish dahlia is seen everywhere, socie-
ties are forced to admire it, and to gamble in it ; and the
hollyhock is consigned to a few places where, as at Shrub-
land, refined taste still excludes fashionable vulgarity.
The Amaranths are a race peculiarly suited for rich au-
tumnal decoration, quick growing, many sized, and long
enduring ; no doubt susceptible of further change ; but
they are abandoned for the sake of petunias and chrysan-
them urns. Surely it. would be wiser to try to improve
these ancient races, which are so well suited to our cli-
mate and our purses, than to limit our skill to tampering
with the constitution of the delicate, though brilliant,
strangers that have taken such entire possession of our
affections. Let no man say that they are incapable of
imkovement : who has tried the experiment ? Who has
tried to cross the prince's feather with the cockscomb ? or
love-lies-bleeding with the tricolour ? or the bee with the
dwarf larkspur ? or the persicaria with the straggling buck-
wheat ( polygonum divaricatum) ? or the Indian pink with
the carnation ? or the marigold with the coreopsis ? Until
these trials have been made with at least as much care as
has oeen shown in managing the calceolaria, or the pansy,
we must be permitted to say that our ancient friends are
unfairly treated; and that we are doing ourselves much
disservice."

So writes the editor of the Gardeners' Chronicle, and we
think our readers will agree with us that it is the last

ty. Unlike other recent novelties,
however, we believe it will not be so evanescent, or so
valueless. As a proof of the truth of his new opinions,
the writer above quoted describes some improvements in
the double daisy lately made by Mr. Louis Van Houtte,
of Ghent, and he thus speaks of plate respresenting eleven
of these varieties in Van Houtti's

orticultural

" I'Yore des Serres et des Jardins de l'Europe. Than
the group thus produced it is impossible to imagine any-
thing more exquisitely beautiful ; bite, roses of various
tints, white tipped with rose, quilled, red-eyed, richly
varie4ated, they appear to embrace all that is most worth
having in the Dahlia, with their own peculiar elegance
and diminutive stature. We trust that they will speedily
find their way to the gardens of this country , and that
they will be looked upon as heralds of other, though not
more admirable, changes, to be wrought among the re-
jected favourites of the north."

If this may be said of the humble daisy, what may we
not accomplish with numberless other exiles, from our

gardens