Mr. Salter appropriated every year a great old lean to conservatory to a display of chrysanthemums, which was visited by hundreds of people, and constituted, during the three or four weeks when the flowers were in their prime, a rendezvous for the florists, not of London only, but of all parts, for amateurs would come from far north and far south, hundreds of miles, to see the flowers.

The Salters, father and son, were men of rare, good taste, immense experience and extensive knowledge, and had the best collection ever formed near London, of interesting, hardy plants of all kinds, more especially pyrethrums, pentstemons, phloxes, poeonies, saxifragas and succulents, and their " winter garden," in which the chrysanthemums formed the principal feature, was always enriched with groups of curious and beautiful plants of whatever kind happened to be in presentable condition in the month of November. It was in this winter garden that Dahlia Imperialis first presented its flowers in this country, and from the same place went forth every season to the world at large, a batch of new chrysanthemums, nine-tenths of all we now possess having been raised or purchased for sale in the first instance, from the raisers, by the Salters. A railway company swallowed up the Hammersmith nursery, and the Salters retired a year ago, greatly to the regret of the London • florists, by whom they were beloved as men and greatly respected for their horticultural labors. The other exhibition deserving of mention in this connection is that of my friend Mr. Adam Forsyth of Stoke Newington, who holds his ground bravely, and is the first trade grower of the day.

He, too, has sent out a number of valuable varieties, and may claim to rank with distinguished raisers; but I must reveal a psychological fact which these two exhibitions made manifest. Fiat Justilia ruat, etc. The Salters were raisers and nothing more; they never could, if judged from a high floricultural standard, grow a chrysanthemum. Perhaps they never tried. Certain it is that they never brought up their plants to sufficient perfection for a fair development and a splendid display, so that when visiting their exhibitions one could criticise with advantage the characteristics of the varieties, but they never did present their visitors with a single example of real specimen growing, and we had to go to public exhibitions to see the full capabilities of the flower. On the other hand Mr. Forsyth is a cultivator in the highest sense of the word, and a raiser, as it were, rather by accident than design. His display consists wholly of grand specimens; he furnishes the amateur with the model of a perfect plant; he trains and trims, and thins and coaxes, and at last puts upon the stage gigantic plants, evenly convex in outline like the crust of a pie, with the flowers as symmetrically disposed as if put on simply by hand, and averaging four to five feet in diameter.

I do not pretend to know how you stand in reference to this flower, but I imagine that if we could carry over a few of such specimens as Forsyth makes every year, your amateurs would be (pardon the vulgarism) flabbergasted. Mr. Ball, of Chelsea, succeeds the Salters as a distributor of new varieties, but he makes no exhibition; and whenever Forsyth gives up (and may the day be distant), it is not likely he. will have a proper successor, for the trade growers here fight shy of the flower, except as an article of sale, because of the immense amount of labor and the peculiar kind of skill required to do it well enough to make an exhibition. But the amateurs kept it going, and the societies never flag but increase in number and strength every year, and the peculiar adaptability of the plant to middle class gardens will insure its continued and ever-extending popularity for many a year to come. Perhaps if you sink the old ship on account of Alabama claims, we shall forget our flowers in trying to save ourselves amid the wreck, but not until some catastrophe strikes at the very foundation of our social joys shall we cease to dote on this grand autumnal flower.

During the earlier years of the exhibitions they consisted of chrysanthemums only. Nothing else was admitted on any pretense whatever. To whisper of expansion was to incur the risk of excommunication from the charmed circle. Yet whispers arose, and in spite of the men of one idea, the thin edge of a new wedge was deftly driven in, and fruits and ferns were mingled with the flowers. A sort of small war was carried on for ten years, but the war is over, peace reigns, and at nearly all the shows miscellaneous products are admitted to increase the attraction and the instruction, though, of course, the chrysanthemum is always the piece de resistance. Strange to say, Stoke Newington, which laid the first stone, was about the last to submit to the crowning of the edifice. But this hyperborean region of England's metropolis has put the lands of the Medes and Persians under foot, and in the beautiful assembly rooms where the shows are now held, fruits make a prominent feature, and a few ornamental plants of the palmy and ferny kinds, with elegant odds and ends, are admitted. The best exhibition in the metropolis is that held at Brixton, where fruits and fine foliage plants are quarterly presented.

The best exhibition in all England is that held in St. George's Hall, Liverpool, where, in November last, there were upwards of three hundred grand specimen plants, five hundred dishes of fruits, and many hundred miscellaneous subjects, such as poinsettias, primulas, orchids, ferns and berry-bearing shrubs. One exhibition in London made a profound impression on the public mind. It was that held in the Guildhall of the city in aid of a charitable fund, in the year 1865. It was a grand affair. The emblems of medieval life brought the grim past face to face with the blooming present with its life and bustle, and Godfrey's Coldstream Band dinned the ears of Gog and Magog, while thousands gazed in admiration and wonder on the hundreds of magnificent specimen chrysanthemums and cut flowers that overspread the hall and made as rich a feast of flowers as the most abandoned poet could hope for after proving the futility of trusting to fancy instead of appealing to fact. Shall we ever forget it? I mean "we" of the fancy? No! The tree ferns or pedestals that lined the hall on each side were worth a thousand pounds. The chrysanthemums were startling in their perfections, even to those who understood them best.

Yet there was not one penny offered for prizes; it was all done for love and honor and duty, and all the profits went in a glorious lump to the charity in behalf of which the affair was undertaken. The growers of chrysanthemums are mostly Angles - men of fair complexion and sanguine temperament, and nor yet dare we change the spelling to make angels of them. But they are good enough for this world according to my way of thinking.

Now let me reveal another psychological curiosity. It is a big task to grow this flower as we see it grown, more especially in London, Liverpool and Bristol. Hence few professional gardeners can afford the time required to do it justice; hence also, perhaps, the reason why we rarely see it in the gardens of the wealthy, or even in our first class nurseries, except as an article of sale and not as a subject of display I have taken careful note of this fact, that no man, however devoted, can keep a top place in the exhibitions for more than seven years on an average. Every season young stars arise in the firmament, and every season old stars go down. To bring the plants up to exhibition pitch, however able, according to the high standard that prevails, requires daily devotion the whole year round, but from May to August the tax on one's time is enormous. Upon an average, seven years is as much as a man's brains and fingers can endure of this work. So at least it appears, for the names of winning exhibitors come into these ports as new, shine for a few years and then pass away; and so on, and so on, like the revolution of the constellations in the zodiac, but with this difference, that the old names are replaced by new ones; no man gets up out of bis grave to begin the battle again and win afresh the conquests of his youth.

After about seven years a competitor before the public appears to have had enough of it, but he may still plod on at home and enjoy his flowers as household pets as long as God spares his hands to train them and eyesight to behold them, and his mind to appreciate the beauteous boon or this floral glory of the autumn.

Shirley HibbeRd.