The marked improvement that continues to be seen in the culture of plants, fruits and flowers, which this Society has done so much through its long life to foster, still continues in evidence from this year's exhibit, and must be very gratifying to the members of the Society. The art of growing things well is supposed to be an European specialty, which the gardener leaves behind him when he lands in America; but many of the specimens here were grown in a manner that even a prize-master in the old world might envy. The chief novelty was in the superior culture; for of the kinds of fruits or flowers there was scarcely anything that attendants on former exhibitions had not seen before.

Passing through in our search for novelties, in kind or culture, we were attracted by a plant of Abutilon Sellowianum in its marbled and variegated form, exhibited by John Nisbet, gardener to Mrs. D. Jayne. Though only about 9 inches by 9, it was a dense mass of foliage, with yellow marblings on green ground. Most of the Abutilons have a straggling habit.

Mrs. D. B. Worrell had a plant of Epiphyllum latifrons in flower, which the officers of the Society had labelled "Night-blooming cereus," and the public were educated to believe that the famous old favorite was before them in this miserable counterfeit.

Joseph Kift & Sons made their usual exhibit of articles to aid floral decoration. One of the prettiest on this occasion was, little golden baskets attached to po'lished black slate slabs, with easel supports. These baskets are filled each with a small bouquet. In the filled illustrations, ferns chiefly were employed.

In several collections, and especially that of Jos. W. Metz, were plants of the Asparagus plumosus, a plant belonging to the florists' "Smilax " family. It is mist-like and green, and will for years keep popular. There was much novelty in this collection, though the plants might not be quite as well grown as in some others. A variety of the old Gesneria discolor, known as G. nigrescens; and the Campylobotrix Ghiesbrech-tiana, with very pretty green and silver marked leaves, which are rosy below, are plants that are not often seen. The ferns in this collection were very well grown. A Microlepis hirto-cristatain a 12-inch pot, had three dozen fronds, and after rising 2 feet drooped very gracefully. Adiantum concin-num, A. laetum, A. amabile, and some other favorite species formed dense plants about 2 feet by 2. A Nephrolepis tuberosa had fronds about 3 feet long, and only 2 inches wide, forming a striking object. The remarkable plant, Dracaena Goldiana, which has green-barred leaves on gray ground, was in this and many other collections, showing its growth in popular estimation of cultivators. Echeverias by the same exhibitor were attractive.

As probably desirable for carpet bedding, we noted E. navicularis, and Sempervivum Californicum, both of which had the gray-green leaves, rosy-tipped.

The prince of good cultivators, however, is Mr. John Warne, gardener to Clarence H. Clark, Esq. Imagine among ferns Adiantum gracillimum about 2½ by2½Y feet, with millions of little frondlets, which it would drive one crazy to count. Nephrolepis davalloides, one of the crested ferns, with fronds only about 4 inches wide, but about 3 feet in length, terminating in regular " crow-feet. It is one of the most striking of all ferns. A stag's-horn fern, Platycerium alcicorne, with over a hundred fronds, and one of the pretty climbing ferns, Gleicheina spelunea, is one of the most graceful of the family. The pinnules are less than a quarter of an inch wide, but range from 2 to 4 inches long. An Asparagus tenuissimus in a 15-inch pot was about 4 feet high by 3 wide. Even common things are not neglected by this good cultivator. Imagine a Sago palm only about 6 feet high, and yet with no less than 50 fronds of 3-feet lengths on it, and a a palm, Latania Borbonica, with a trunk of only 18 inches high, bearing nineteen huge fronds.

Mr. Charles Fox had also some well-grown palms. A Latania with nine fronds, a Sago with fifteen annual rings in a growth of 3 feet, and a very pretty species of Date palm, Phcenixrupicola, in a 15-inch pot with fifteen fronds; the whole plant making a specimen about 4 feet by 4.

Fergusson Sons' collection was rich in Crotons. The Queen Victoria being particularly striking because of the rich crimson tints among the green and gold. Somewhat of novelties here were An-thurium crystallinum, a plant of which about 2 feet diameter had no less than eight of its white-veined green leaves, and the still rarer Anthurium Veitchii. There is no variegation in this, but the leaves are peculiar among aroids for their length in proportion to their breadth, about 18 inches by 5 or 6, and the veins have the fashion of starting on a downward incline, and then recurving upwards towards the edge. It is a very pleasing style of leaf to those who love to study the elements of beauty in lines and curves.

There are few prettier things than ferns and leaf plants, and yet one misses the beautiful flowers that used to grace exhibitions in the olden time. Craig Brothers were up to the modern times by beautiful ferns - in a splendid specimen of Adiantum caudatum, with fronds but once pinnate, and yet 2-3 feet long; but they brought back old memories by mixing flowering carnations through the ferns.

Mr. E. D. Sturtevant had one of the best novelties in the shape of cut flowers of Zanzibar water lily, Nymphaea Zanzibarensis. This is a deep blue, and about 10 inches across. It is nearly double the size of the better known blue lily, N. caerulea. The rich red Nymphaea Devoniana, and the lighter pink Nelumbium speciosum, were also in the collection.

Mr. Charles D. Ball deserves compliments not only for good plants, but for neat labels, placed on long slender stakes, which anyone could read without having to hunt for the ordinary pot label, and which even when found, requires often a post-office clerk, gray with age, to make out. If one tires of the continuous maiden-hair style of ferns, here there was relief in a plant of Hymenodium crinitum, a kind with a sort of cabbage leaf texture of frond, covered with dense black bristles, and there was a green and not gray form of the Stag's-horn fern, and the rare illustration of the same genus in Platycerium grande, with the barren fronds running into the fertile, and which gives one of the peculiarities to this pretty species. In the collection of Mr. W. Joyce, gardener to Mrs. M. W. Baldwin, we noted particularly a specimen of the Chusan palm, Chaemerops For-tunii. It was a bushy specimen about 5x4 feet, and has a sort of "Bambooy " look in its narrow frondlets. It is said to be capable of withstanding several degrees of frost. Mr. Joyce is famous for the excellent manner in which he grows the pretty feather-leaved Marantas. A plant of M. Porteana about 2 feet by 2, had a dense mass of leaves overlapping each other like shingles on a barn.

The old-fashioned M. vittata, which few people can grow well, was here in a specimen about 3 feet by 3. The strange class of plants allied to the Sago, and known as Encephalartos, and which are getting popular, for all their scarcity, was represented here by E. villosus. The fronds are only about 12 inches wide, but were 5 or 6 feet long. They look like fern leaves turned to blue stone. The old style of growing Caladiums in deep shade and moist heat, by which the leaves were drawn and the colors dull, is being abandoned, and the bright and stocky specimens here exhibited proves it. There were so many good ones, the judges must have had a hard time to decide which was the best collection.

A specimen of Mons. A. Hardy, which we regard as one of the brightest and best, had over seventy-five leaves, and was about 3 feet by 3. Clio is another variety that struck our fancy. The same exhibtor, Mr. Warne, gardener to Clarence H. Clark, Esq., had a specimen of the well-known dwarf kind, C. argyrites, in a pan about 2½ feet over, and which we should hardly like to be set to count the leaves, under penalty to finish it in a quarter of an hour. Speaking of the Encephalartos tribe, and Sago palms, Mr. John Dick, Jr., had one of the family in Zamia glaucum, that attracted much attention.

The absence of flowering plants came near being atoned for in a collection of leaf Begonias by John W. Metz. The improvement in these pretty plants seems to have fallen off, yet they are lovely - a kind known as Pierre Walter, though not new, would make a grand exhibition plant, if taken in hand and grown well. And H. A. Dreer brought us up to the point of admiration by actual flowering plants of the tuberous Begonias. Florists have given up naming varieties, as from seed no two are alike. The kinds are as infinite as a lot of Pansies. These of Dreer were about 50, in 6-inch pots, all different and beautiful.

H. A. Dreer had also some novelties in his collection. There were a variegated Bougainvillea, and the old variegated Hydrangea, scarce enough now to be "novel," and a pretty aroid named Phyl-lotaenia Lindeni. It was in a 10-inch pot with about 50 leaves each, 6 to 10 inches long, and the white veins on the leaves disposed fish-bone fashion.

Mrs. Annie Bissett had a nice collection of some hundred ferns in 3 or 4-inch pots, by which we might see how many more kinds might be made pets of by cultivators, besides the stock kinds everybody is rushing to grow. Woodwardia orientalis, Notholaena sinuata, and Adiantum his-pidulum are evidently kinds worth looking after.

Cut flowers in the shape of designs, and table, wedding, and funeral ornaments were abundant, though with little that we can note by way of novelty. A church made of flowers by Graham showed how useful the faded brown of the Hydrangea paniculata is in making stone walls. H. D-. Nesbit, and Sheafer's work told how useful the leaves of European Ivy are still in making background in some styles of work; while for background work R. Scott & Sons use effectively the Christmas ferns, Aspidium acrostichoides. Craig Bros, are making good use of a small white Dahlia named Guiding Star. It is not over two inches across, and very double, and the same firm use with admirable effect the darker China asters, among maiden-hair fern. They had also some good work made up of Geranium flowers, and we should not be surprised to find some day some one hitting on a combination that will make Zonale Geraniums more popular than they are now for cut flower work.

Pennock Bros, showed how beautifully the Bennett Rose matched Niphetos for drooping " drapery " in cut flower work. In cut roses there were many fine exhibits, but no particular novelties. In Charles F. Evans' set there were flowers of American Beauty that measured 5 inches across, and were quite double when expanded. The two names are superfluous, and probably the " Beauty" is all it will get in the busy haunts of trade. The Bennett in this collection was nearly single when full blown, but this does not detract from its great beauty in the bud, and " buds " are all a rose lover wants. The collections of miscellaneous cut flowers exhibited little new. Perhaps the re-appearance of the good old coxcomb in Mr. Walter Cole's collection may be so termed. But the single Dahlias in the collection of Fergusson's Sons were truly grand. Nothing that has appeared for many years has been so little over-praised as these.

Conrad Kirchner had a new seedling carnation of some merit, but without a name. It was a light salmon with a few flakes of darker tint here and there.

In fruits there was a remarkable paucity for this famous Society. The Globe peach on exhibition showed it to be much later than we supposed when we had it first before us. A grand collection of hot-house grapes from David Allen, gardener to R. M. Piatt, of Boston, made up however for the absence of much that might be mediocre. We are sorry that the weights or measurements of the bunches were not displayed with the fruit. The bunches had however nothing remarkable in size to one who has seen a Pennsylvania exhibit for many years, but the berries were remarkable for size, and in a perfect and thorough ripening we have rarely seen their equal. We do not remember anything so superb for many a long day. Some much larger bunches were on exhibition from Mr. G. Huster, gardener to Mrs. Heyl, and from Mr. Duncan Rhind; the latter had Black Barbarossa, about 2 feet long by I wide. Fer-gusson Sons had a very nice collection of hothouse grapes, and we were reminded of the old controversy as to the distinctness of Prince Albert from Black Barbarossa by a bunch of each side by side.

The former has a somewhat looser bunch.