354 FLORA HISTORICA, 



until after the year 1814, when the peace enabled 

 our nurserymen to obtain an additional supply both 

 of roots and seed from France, where the cultiva- 

 tion of these plants had been more attended to than 

 in this country. The Count Lebeur, at Paris, and 

 M. Otto, at Berlin, were the principal foreign 

 amateurs who cultivated the Dahlia previous to 

 1809. In that year M. Smetz, of Antwerp, pro- 

 cured a few tubers of these plants from Paris, 

 which were the first seen in that neighbourhood; 

 yet, by the superior mode of treatment, the Ant- 

 werp Dahlias were those most eagerly sought after 

 in the French capital, in less than eight years after 

 they had been known in the Nettherlands. But it 

 was left to English capital and perseverance to 

 illuminate the northern part of the globe by the 

 full brilliancy of these floral luminaries, which now 

 shine as conspicuously in our groves as gas in our 

 towns; and the Dahlia-mania of the nineteenth 

 century, although less dangerous in its effects, has 

 not been less general than the Tulipomania by which 

 our ancestors of the seventeenth century were so 

 much affected. 



The ingenuity of the florist has never appeared 

 more conspicuous than in the treatment of this 

 Mexican plant, as through their art these flowers 

 have had their petals doubled and quadrupled, until 

 they have become as full as the China Aster or the 



