io8 Bulletin 128. 



can certainly be produced, and it is probably only a question of 

 time when we shall have all the shapes of the chrysanthemums. 



Why a?id how dahlias should be chaiiged. — Perhaps some one 

 may ask, "Why do you wish to change the nature of the dahlia? 

 If you are satisfied with the rose as such, and the lily, and would 

 not try to make either like the other, why do you want to make 

 dahlias look like chyrsanthemums ?" 



The big round dahlia of the old school is not nature, — it is art. 

 Or, at best it is only one type of beauty. Dahlias are not essen- 

 tiall}^ big and round. It is their nature to vary into many forms. 

 Of the forms that nature gives us, we select the ones we like and 

 destroy the rest. There are at least two good reasons why the 

 chrysanthemum-like forms would be desirable in dahlias ; first, 

 because the foliage is different, and flowers are entitled to different 

 settings of foliage, just as precious stones may have their beauty 

 set off" in various ways. The foliage of the new cactus types is 

 often distinctly graceful and beautiful. This, too, is good news 

 for those who could not tell a field of dahlias from a field of 

 potatoes at a moderate distance. Secondly, the growing of 

 chrysanthemums in this climate is a highly specialized industry 

 requiring greenhouses, capital and skill. Dahlias can be grown 

 outdoors by everybody. Anyone can have them in his garden, 

 and have lots of flowers, and at much less cost. It is a mistake 

 to suppose that the best dahlias can be raised without skill and 

 trouble. But while chrysanthemums will not tolerate ignorance 

 or neglect, dahlias give an astonishing return for a minimum of 

 work. Moreover the seasons are quite different. The first frost 

 will always kill the dahlias out-of-doors while the chrysanthe- 

 mums are preparing their November glories within. 



These chrysanthemum-like forms are some of the best and most 

 numerous that we have, and we cannot have too much of informal 

 grace and beauty. We ought to have these types all the year 

 round. The China-asters have many of these forms, as well as 

 others not preserved among chrysanthemums and not yet 

 achieved by dahlias, in a different set of colors, and at an inter- 

 mediate season. They too have their place. These three genera, 

 Chrysanthemum, Dahlia, Callistephus are not competitors, but 

 friends that supplement one another, and of all the composites in 



