Stoke NewinGton. London, EnG., Jan. 6, 1871.

EDITOR Horticulturist: Dear friend, permit me to make an experiment in order to ascertain if a subject which is of the most common-place order in this country has any interest for your readers. It will depend very much on my mode of submitting it to their attention; but, of necessity, a bad advocate of a good cause ought to make something of it, and I shall first endeavor, while I have an hour to spare, to say something of a great social institution which I believe to be peculiar to this country, but for its intrinsic merit, worthy of attention, however, men do congregate, and the domestic arts are encouraged for the edification and solace of the industrial throng. Pardon me if I assume, for mere whim's sake, that you know nothing practically of our autumnal exhibitions of chrysanthemums. In a most striking manner do they represent the inner life of our crowded cities. I cannot go through one of these exhibitions without indulging in meditation on the initial impulses of races, for in these displays I seem to find an expression of that earnest love of nature which has made our language rich and our race strong, and our influence universal.

Love of the country is certainly not peculiar to the Anglo-Saxon, but it is an abiding passion of his, and if he must be shut up in a great town to guide a steam engine instead of a plough he will have a garden, and some time in the autumn a contest in chrysanthemums. In all our great towns this noble flower is cultivated with greater devotion than any other flower, and yet, strange to say, it cannot be properly described as pre-eminent in popularity, for I think the pelargoniums and the rose fairly share with it the proofs of future esteem. I know not how to communicate to your readers the exact position of the chrysanthemum in our gardens except by saying that although it is not the most important subject that claims our attention in the development of floriculture, yet it is, par excellence, the people's flower. But we shall get at the case presently perhaps. In the first place, then, let it be understood that in great and grand gardens the chrysanthemum is scarcely known. This is strange, but true. Now it is known in connection with the fashionable promenade or place of great public resort, as witness, that the Royal Horticulture Society and the Crystal Palace have made many attempts to establish chrysanthemum exhibitions, and have signally failed from first to last.

Our wealthy amateurs delight in orchids, palms, ferns and hard-wooded plants, but, as a rule, they despise the chrysanthemum. Our humblest amateurs grow pinks, picotees, pansies and auriculas, but have only a small regard for the chrysanthemum, because to enjoy it in this country it must be flowered under glass, and that doubtless is the sole impediment to its adoption by workingmen as one of their best floral pets. You will begin to ask how it can be a "people's flower." Well, it is so in this sense, that it is equal in favor with the geraniums with our middle class folks in all great towns. It is, I may say, a tradesman's flower, and those who really take an interest in its cultivation throw so much heart into the pastime that they render this autumnal flower representative of great social necessities, and the deep, underlying characteristics of the Teutonic blood which yet flows in the veins of Englishmen. For full twenty years past I have attended in the course of every November some twenty to thirty exhibitions of this flower, duty sometimes calling me, and at other times mere curiosity and the love of the thing, and the desire to shake hands with friends at a season of holiday.

It has been my privilege to see the institution developed from small beginnings to its present splendor and completeness; and when I contrast what I saw in St. George's Hall, Liverpool, on the 22d of November last, with the modest displays in my own village twenty years ago, the contrast astonishes me, for it is as if a flea should grow to an elephant in the course of an hour before one's eyes, as may have happened to many a one in a dream.

Let us go back to the beginning, in order to claim for this rural suburb of Stoke Newington whatever renown it should have as the home of the first chrysanthemum society. Picture, if you can, one of our own old-fashioned wayside hostelries, and call it the "Rochester Castle." Go back five and twenty years, and picture the low-roofed parlor wherein every evening a number of the better class of tradesman and small gentlemen of the village enveloped themselves and each other in clouds of tobacco smoke, and while stirring their toddy discussed the politics of the day and the latest scandal of the district, and the personal predelictions of the most prominent members of "the parlor." There you shall see a big handsome man, of generous, rosy face, and the complexion and expression of true Anglo; or if not that, at least as fine a typical Englishman as a searcher after ethnological types could desire. That is Robert James, the landlord of the "Rochester," a first rate host, an enthusiastic and able florist; a man of broad sympathies and healthy tastes. The chrysanthemum has become a pet of his, and he has formed a collection of some five and twenty sorts.

The talk of the parlor turns upon floriculture quite acording to custom, and an exhibition of chrysanthemums is determined on, and Robert James takes the lead as treasurer and advocate; and, of all the workers in the movement, best of all lays claim by his activities to be forever after known as the Father of the first Chrysanthemum Society. Thenceforward, for full ten years, Stoke Newington stands almost alone in its public vindication of the flower, and the annual exhibitions of the society create a local stir and exercise a little influence beyond, through the reports that appear in the public prints. Almost as if by magic, there is an outbreak of chrysanthemum societies in London; and in the month of November the exhibitions constitute an important subject of conversation, and if the weather happens to be favorable when the shows are held, they are visited by thousands of people, to whom just then any kind of daylight entertainment is a perfect godsend, for the public gardens have ceased to attract, and the general scheme of public amusements is somehow out of joint, and this very entertainment is the thing the middle classes want to drive dull care away. Did I say "daylight?" By all that's true and good I had nearly forgotten them.