THE FLORI.-T. 



181 



useless ? By no means. They are for an important purpose in the 

 economy of man's sustenance from the fruits of the field. They 

 undergo (by grafting) an operation much more startlingly unnatural, at 

 first view, than is the hybridisation of the Erica ; and the Crabstock is 

 made to sustain the bearing wood of choicer kinds instead of its own — 



Miraturque novas frondes et non sua poma •* — 

 while the plants that spring from the successful seeds become the 

 parents of new varieties as numerous as those of the Ranunculus 

 or the Pelargonium. This apparently unnatural process is both na- 

 tural and necessary. And as the time when it was first practised 

 is hidden in the mists of the remotest antiquity, and as it was 

 anciently in use among nations unconnected with each other, and 

 as each ascribed the discovery to its founder or to some god, it is 

 probable that it was taught of God to our first father, when the 

 original curse upon the ground and all its productions, for man's sin, 

 made labour the condition of his bread ! 



This is rendered the more probable by the distinct claim made 

 in Isaiah (xxviii. 23-29), for the teaching of the art of husbandry to 

 man by the Creator, — an art which supplies us with a still stronger 

 instance in point than the foregoing. 



The most useful, or rather necessary, of all vegetable productions 

 to man, the Cerealia (plants which produce the " breadstuff's" of the 

 American vocabulary), appear to be almost all of them of the class 

 most abhorrent to the botanist, — hybrids. At least the native original 

 of many of them is, I believe, unknown, and of others would not be 

 recognised except by a botanist. Cultivation during the course of 

 four thousand years, and a care bestowed upon improving the seed, 

 like that which the florist practises upon the Fuchsia or the Calceo- 

 laria, have made them what they now are. There can, therefore, be 

 nothing unnatural in the art which has brought into being, or at 

 least to its present state of perfection, the staff of human life. 



And if the end aimed at in improving the petals of a Dianthus be 

 of less importance to the welfare of man than in improving the seed 

 of a Carex, yet the mode by which it is effected being the same in 

 both cases, what is right in the one case cannot be wrong in the other. 

 If it is not unnatural in the fruit, neither is it in the flower. That 

 art is in perfect analogy with all the other consequences of our con- 

 dition as children of Adam, — a condition which requires at our hands 

 a laborious compulsion of nature to yield up to our importunities the 

 riches it is entrusted with for our use. 



Iota, 



AMATEUR TULIP SOCIETY. 



The annual exhibition of this society took place on the 26th of 

 May, at the Horns Tavern, Kennington. It was attended by most 

 of the leading cultivators of this favourite flower, which was pro- 



* " And wonders at the strange foliage, and fruit not its own." 



