The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1897-05-29

especially slender rose stocks that bear
one Or two fine roses at time. That
they are capable of Offering a regular,
big rose tree, with thick trunk growing
from a transportable flower pot, the
branches set close with blossoms, can be
seen at the great flower exhibition now
open at Treptow Park. In two of the
buildings of the Industrial Exhibition of
last year, the Chemical and Fisheries
Buildings, together with number of
new hothouses, the gardeners of Prussia,
Saxony, and Hessia, have brought togeth-
er varied exhibit. Many are the prizes.
One is a great artistic effort of the Royal
Berlin Porcelain Works presented by the
Emperor, consisting of kind of tureen
with most elaborate figures on cover and
corners, and four paintings on the sides
representing fruits. The pate is of that
more than creamy yellow, of which the
porcelain manufacturer is SO fond; the
modelling of the nude and draped figures
is intelligent. But compared to the hard
white porcelains which this factory made
a hundred years ago, some of them noble
in their simplicity, this modern work
looks worried and pretentious. Other
prizes are given by the Empress, by guilds
of Berlin, and by the patrons of the show
who comprise eminent merchants as
well as famous statesmen, barons of the
sugar refineries, and "kings'' of the in
dustries.
PALMS AND SHRUBS.
The Chemical Building, in which these
and many other prizes are duly ranged,
is given up to palms and evergreen shrubs
at its north and south ends, while all be-
tween is garden with lovely stretches of
color blazing from red, yellow, and pink
roses, azaleas in every hue Of white, pink,
yellow, red, and purple, and "Alpine
roses" as the Germans call rhododen-
drons in almost as many colors. Not all
of the varieties are pleasing, when one
comes to examine them. 1t is clear that
in the effort to produce "novelty 1897, y
various ambitious gardeners have been
content to secure singular combination
Of colors of far from beautiful shade,
just for the sake of the novelty. What
startles the layman most is the dexterity
of the flower forcers in turning out Sc
great a proportion of petals to green Leaf
and stalk. They seem to have magi-
clans skill, whereby they can force a
plant to substitute flowers for leaves.
This is particularly evident with the azal,
cas-, which appear like great hemispheres
of flowers set close together so that one
sees hardly suspicion of green leaf or
branch. The rhododendrons are not SC
large, SO varied, or. so magnificent as one
sees them in the London and New York
flower shows apparently because they are
not such great favorites as are roses and
azaleas with the Berlin public.
One end of the Fisheries Building is
devoted to magnificent show of palms
by a grower from Niederschonhausen
together with other plants valued fol
their leaves, like the araucandia, with its
green fiat branches as if made artifcially
even and correct. Another great palm
grower from Leipsic is here, notwith-
standing the fact that Leipsic herself is
making notable show of flowers ano
shrubs during May June, land July
This gardener thinks nothing of going tc
China for rare specimens and negotiating
| at first hand in his own broken Chinese