174 



THE CULTURE OF HEATHS. 



creation, and the naming them carries us 

 hack to one of the highest privileges of our 

 first parents. The offspring becomes our 

 own ipyov ; which, according to Aristotle, 

 claims the highest degree of our love. We 

 should feel that, in leaving them, we were 

 leaving friends, and address in the words 

 of Eve, 



' O flowers, 

 My early visitation and my last 

 At even, which, I hail bred up tvith tender hand 

 From the firs', opening bud, and gave ye names, 

 "Who now shall rear ye to the sun, or rank 

 Your tribes, and water from the ambrosial fount?' 



Par. Lost, xi. 



We cannot but admire the practice of 

 the Church of Rome, which calls in the 

 aid of floral decorations on her high festi- 

 vals. If we did not feel convinced that it 

 was the most bounden duty of the Church 

 of England, at the present moment, to give 

 no unnecessary offence by restorations in 

 indifferent matters, we should be inclined 

 to advocate, notwithstanding the denuncia- 

 tions of some of the early Fathers, some 

 slight exception in the case of our own fa- 

 vorites. We shall not easily forget the ef- 

 fect of a long avenue of orange-trees in the 

 Cathedral of St. Gudule at Brussels, call- 

 ing to mind as it did the expression of the 

 psalmist — ' Those that be planted in the 

 house of the Lord shall flourish in the 

 courts of our God.' The white lily is held 

 throughout Spain and Italy the emblem of 

 the Virgin's purity, and frequently deco- 

 rates her shrines ; and many other flowers, 

 dedicated to some saint, are used in profu- 

 sion on the day of his celebration. The 

 oak-leaf and the palm-branch have with 



us their loyal and religious anniversary, 

 and the holly still gladdens the hearts of 

 all good Churchmen at Christmas — a cus- 

 tom which the Puritans never succeeded 

 in effacing from the most cant-ridden parish 

 in the kingdom. Latterly, flowers have 

 been much used among us in festivals, and 

 processions, and gala-days of all kinds — the 

 dahlia furnishing, in its symmetry and va- 

 riety of colouring, an excellent material for 

 those who, perhaps, in their young days 

 sowed their own initials in rnustard-and- 

 cress, to inscribe in their maturer years 

 their sovereign's name in flowers. Flow- 

 ering plants and shrubs are at the same 

 time becoming more fashionable in our 

 London ball-rooms. No dread of 'noxious 

 exhalations' deters mammas from deco- 

 rating their halls ar.d staircases with flow- 

 ers of every hue and fragrance, nor their 

 daughters from braving the headaches and 

 pale cheeks, which are said to arise from 

 such innocent and beautiful causes. We 

 would go one step further, and replace all 

 artificial flowers by natural ones, on the 

 dinner-table and in the hair. Some of the 

 more amaranthine flowers, as the camellia 

 and the hoya, which can bear the heat of 

 crowded rooms, or those of regular shapes, 

 as the dahlia and others, would, we are 

 sure, with a little contrivance in adjusting 

 and preserving them, soon eclipse the most 

 artistical wreaths of Natir or Forster, and 

 we will venture to promise a good partner 

 for a waltz and for life to the first fair dc~ 

 but ante who will take courage to adopt the 

 natural flower in her ' sunny locks.' 



THE CULTURE OF HEATHS. 



BY WILLIAM SAUNDERS, NEW-HAVEN, CT. 



I was pleased to observe, in a late number 

 of the Horticulturist, some allusion to this 

 family of plants, relative to the introduc- 

 tion of some of the rare and superior va- 

 rieties. There is probably no class of 

 green-house plants that commend them- 

 selves so much to our attention as this. 

 The varieties are so numerous and varied, 



both in foliage and flower, even when they 

 are not in flower ; the plants have a lively 

 appearance, on account of the diversified 

 beauty cf their foliage, and their neat 

 and bushy habit ; and the flowers are all 

 very interesting- — some of them, indeed, 

 of most exquisite beauty and delicacy. 

 A selection judiciously made, and properly 



