DAHLIA. 393 



The Dahlia was but little known in England 

 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 

 cultivation of these plants had been more at- 

 tended to than in this country. The Count Le- 

 beur, 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, procured a few tubers of these plants 

 from Paris, and which were the first seen in that 

 neighbourhood ; yet by the superior mode of treat- 

 mentj the Antwerp Dahlias were those most 

 eagerly sought after in the French capital, in less 

 than eight years after they had been known in 

 the Netherlands. But it was left to English ca- 

 pital and perseverance to illuminate the northern 

 part of the globe by the full brilliancy of these 

 floral luminaries, which now shine as conspicu- 

 ously 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 an- 

 cestors 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 



