looks up into the bell of the snake’s-head fritillary; here is a great peony bowed down with its crimson globes; here a nasturtium trails its bright yellow blossoms along a bit of grey old rock; here a cluster of hollyhocks keep watch by a garden walk; here the purple clematis clings to the orchard hedge. Pictures of flowers such as these, if only the artist have some sense of colour and some refinement of taste, would give a real and almost a new pleasure to us all. But there must be no artistic grouping, or representing of things as they should be rather than as they are. The work must be conscientious, as in the case of a great living sculptor who, having to carve an ivy plant upon a tablet, went himself to study the form of growing ivy, and found how entirely different it is from the conventional wreaths of the ordinary marble-mason. There is one question in connection with English horticulture to which at first sight it does not seem quite easy to give a satisfactory answer. Are the flower-shows, the number of which is constantly increasing, an advantage or not? They certainly stimulate the production of magnificent fruit, of beautiful florist-flowers, and of handsome stove and greenhouse plants. But how do they affect the gardens in which these prize specimens are grown? It is mere matter of fact that, when a gardener begins to think of exhibiting, he is very apt to pay undue attention to the plants which will secure him prizes and reputation. If his master is satisfied with the usual monotony of garden-beds, why should the gardener give special attention to what can be of no service to himself? So he throws his whole strength into some bunches of grapes, some dozen roses, some trained chrysanthemums. And this is not the worst of it. The “dressing” of particular blooms has recently become an art, and little curling-irons are employed to get petals into their proper shape, and other various devices are used for various flowers. But there is after all a morality in these things. It is allowable to cut away superfluous petals, but it is not allowable to insert fragments of another blossom. This seems to be the limit. Now we confess the whole system seems to us thoroughly bad, and we recommend the managers of flower-shows to forbid “dressing” of every kind. If not exactly dishonest in itself, it leads on, and very easily, to the worst forms of dishonesty. But indeed, in almost every aspect, nothing can be more spoiling to the gardener than these flower-shows so constantly are. In the first place, the prize-ticket generally asserts that the prize is adjudged to “Mr.——, gardener to——.” The owner of the garden is nobody, and the gardener is everything. The prize is in almost every case regarded as the unchallenged property of the gardener, who has, nevertheless, won the prize by his master’s plant, reared at his master’s expense, and at the cost of time which has made him too frequently neglect much more important matters.