["Through the death of Mr. PETER GRIEVE we have lost one of our
best-known landscape gardeners, also a distinguished hybridest
and cross-breeder."--_Daily Chronicle._]
Good gardeners grieve for Mr. PETER GRIEVE,
Who landscape-gardening art has had to leave,
To our regret. Hybridest and cross-breeder,
He in the Garden-World was a great leader.
"Suffolk Sir JOSEPH PAXTON" he was called.
From many an English garden, snugly walled
And florally embellished, plaints will come.
He many a zonal pelargonium,
Double petunia, and other blossom,
Has left, of a new race, to deck earth's bosom.
Better than selfish climb to place and power
It is to bless our world with a new flower.
Better than many Tsars, depend upon it,
This Floral King deserves an ode or sonnet.
PETER THE GREAT _was_ great, but one lived later
Whom sorrowing _Punch_ dares dub "PETER THE GREATER!"
* * * * *
"THE CULTIVATION OF BEES."--SIR,--I see this subject taken up in the
_Standard_, but have not had time to peruse the correspondence. I doubt
whether bees can be cultivated. I have seen a Learned Pig, Clever Cats,
Industrious Hoppers, all thoroughly trained; but never have I come
across a Cultivated Bee. The bee is too busy as a worker even to have
the leisure which cultivation requires. I have heard of a bee getting so
far in his education as to become a "Spelling Bee." But even the
"Spelling Bees" seem to have had their day and died out. Yours,