HOW THE FUCHSIA WAS INTRODUCED 


INTO ENGLAND.



SOME time in the first quarter of the present century, a gentleman from Liverpool, while walking through a street in Wapping, saw in the window of a humble looking tenement a graceful little shrub, with dark green leaves and beautifully pendulous carnationblossoms. He was charmed with the new floral gem, and when he returned to Liverpool called upon a celebrated florist, to whom he described the plant. The curiosity of the florist, who did not know any plant, which came up to the description, was so greatly excited that he set off immediately for London.

Having found the house, by seeing the plant in the window, he entered, and ascertained that its owner was the wife of a sailor, and that her husband had brought the plant home from the West Indies as a love-offering to his young bride. The delighted florist made overtures for the purchase of the fuchsia, which were at first strenuously refused. After some little time, however, he got possession of the much-coveted prize. Having given the sailor's wife a handsome sum of money in hand, and a promise that the first plant raised from it should be sent to her, he started for Liverpool, and after proper treatment, he soon had the plant exhibited in his show-room, where it instantly attracted the attention of amateurs. After fulfilling his promise to the sailor's wife at Wapping, he realized some $1500 the first year the plant was exhibited, and was thus well repaid for his enterprise.