158 THE FLORIST. 



ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF FLORISTS' FLOWERS. 



To the Superintendent of The Florist. 



No. II. 



In my last I disposed of the first of the three forms of objection, in 



which the charge of uselessness is ordinarily brought against the 



system of fancy flowers. 



II. The second objection admits the existence among us of a 

 systematic standard of excellence, not the mere creature of caprice ; 

 but repudiates it as bad, on the ground that to admit any such exter- 

 nal and common standard at all, it not being founded in nature, is 

 unnaturally to cramp the freedom of taste existing separately and 

 independently in every one. And further, because, by creating a 

 conventional fastidiousness, it restricts instead of augmenting the 

 pleasure derivable from flowers, and fixes our admiration rather on 

 effects produced by art than on the genuine beauties of nature. 



This form of objection, or some portion of it, is most frequently 

 used by those who are naturally capable of the highest degree of 

 discrimination, both of beauties and of defects in such matters, — 

 the ladies ; and therefore I am not without hope that when I have 

 shewn them that their fears are groundless, I shall enlist heartily 

 in our cause some of the ablest supporters of this really interesting 

 science. And that the objection, though specious and less transpa- 

 rently unsound than the former, is wholly imaginary, might not un- 

 reasonably be inferred from the universal habit of florists perversely 

 to agree in preferring their bondage to liberty ; while yet they ever 

 become more interested in their pursuit the more they occupy them- 

 selves in it, and at the same time continue to retain their relish for 

 a hedge Violet or a Primrose. 



Those who plead for ignorance, even though it be ignorance of 

 the properties of a Pink, are presumptively in the wrong. Nor will 

 the presumptive evidence in this instance mislead us ; for the objec- 

 tion assumes as true what I hope to shew is unfounded : (1) that 

 there is no external standard of floral excellence in nature, but only 

 in the capricious taste of each beholder ; (2) that therefore the 

 established system is of the florist's making, not of his finding ready 

 made for him ; and (3) that to be bound by it, is to diminish the 

 natural pleasure beneficently given us by the Creator in the works 

 of his creation. 



1. With regard to the first assumption, the principal object of 

 these papers is, to trace out from nature, as I hope to do in a subse- 

 quent one, that standard which is alleged to have no existence ; for 

 there certainly is an external standard of perfection, and that in 

 every species of flower, even though we should never reach it in 

 practice, to see it ; because care and cultivation uniformly develop 

 certain qualities, differing in each species, which are only dimly, and 

 perhaps not at all, seen in their wild or natural state. And in those 

 kinds which are technically called florists' flowers, or such as are 

 capable of great diversity in their varieties, by a judicious use of the 



