"To the bi-monthly exhibition of the Royal Horticultural Society the Marquis of SALISBURY sent a magnificent collection--of strawberries especially. Mr. W.H. SMITH showed specimens of the same luscious fruit, for which he received the thanks of the Society."--_Daily Telegraph_.
OHO! my beauty! If _you_ don't get a fust prize, and "receive the thanks of the Society" I'm a cowcumber! "The Fruits of Early Industry and Economy." Title of a picture by that splendid sample of the industrious and the economical, GEORGE MORLAND, I believe. Yes, that's it. My Industry and G-SCH-N's Economy.
We are a moral family; We are, we are, we are!
All the cardinal virtues bound in--ahem! no matter.
Talk of the Gigantic Gooseberry! What is that apocryphal monstrosity compared with this Brobdingnagian Berry? [_Sings._
Bravo, my "British Queen"! Long live my "British Queen"! Brave "British Queen"! Send it victorious, First-Prizer glorious, Fill Rads censorious With envious spleen!
As you _will_, my Beauty! When did swaggering H-RC-RT's horticulture produce such goodly fruits? Or sour-mug'd M-RL-Y's? Or leary L-BBY's? Or Slawkenbergian M-ND-LLA's? Or even that of the Grand Old Grower, GL-DST-NE himself, with all his fluent patter about British Pomona, and the native Jam-pot?
I know the badly-beaten lot maintain that the plant is a "Sport" from an old purchase of their own. Bless you, they claim _all_ the good stocks--always did. Who cares? My young floricultural friend, JOE of Birmingham, who knows a bit about fruits as well as concerning orchids, let me tell you,--JOE, I say, laughs their preposterous pretensions to scorn. Look at G-SCH-N's own particular plant there--a bit late, but very promising, and probably destined to take a prize before the season's over. Didn't JOE recommend the stock to GL-DST-NE years ago? And didn't the haughty Hawarden horticulturist turn up his nose at it as an "Unauthorised" intruder upon his own Prize Programme? And, more by token, didn't JOE get the hump in consequence, cut the old connection, and set up on his own account in the forcing-house line, with a friendly leaning to our firm? Aha! "_Hinc illæ lachrymæ_," as the Guv'nor would say. Hence, also, this Colossal Strawberry!