THE 



LtTB. ^ 



A/EW V^ 



Gardeners^ Monthly 



HORTICULTURIST. 



DEVOTED TO HORTICULTURE, ARBOR/CULTURE AND RURAL AFFAIRS. 



Edited by THOMAS MEEHAN. 



Volume XXV. 



JULY, 1883. 



Number 295. 



Flower Garden and Pleasure Ground, 



COMMUNICATIONS. 



AMONG THE FLOWERS. 



BY VALENTINE BURGEVIN, KINGSTON, N. Y. 



(Concluded from page 162.) 



Amateurs who chose the cultivation of flowers 

 for their pleasure have spent part of their fortune 

 in buying plants, cultivating and exhibiting them 

 for the benefit of their fellow citizens, and have 

 harvested a great deal of honor and satisfaction. 

 Horticultural societies held their yearly exhibitions, 

 and every lover helped to make them a success. 

 Rare plants were sent from all around and shared 

 in the triumph. It was a pleasure to behold these 

 elegant temples of Flora where such perfect col- 

 lections and such great varieties were exhibited. 

 The aesthetic tastes of the German people seemed 

 to lead up to these displays. The education of 

 the humbler class of people even tended towards 

 it. A laboring man's wife, for instance, saved a 

 few pennies froi-n her husband's wages, bought a 

 few plants in market, carried them home in 

 triumph, placed them before her window together 

 with her geraniums, balsams, asters, the highly 

 and general beloved rosemary, sweet basil (without 

 those a collection of that kind would have been 

 regarded very imperfect) and other plants which 



she had collected and planted in tin basins, paint 

 kegs and boxes. She smiles happily as she 

 beholds her flower garden. She loves flowers dear- 

 ly and wants others to admire them. The children 

 are allowed a little spot to make a flower garden, 

 and are encouraged and sustained. Thus a taste 

 grows up with them, and they may in after life, per- 

 haps in a different part of the world, create a little 

 paradise in some wild, isolated and forsaken place, 

 Who would say then that the cultivation of flowers 

 was not a blessing of heaven ? 



In those days greenhouses and conservatories 

 were differently constructed to what they are now. 

 They had sun catchers and were covered with 

 straw mats and shutters at night. They were 

 heated by a smoke flue to keep the frost out, which 

 in very cold weather caused considerable difficul- 

 ty. Plants were only housed for preservation for 

 summer blooming ; consequently flowers in winter 

 were a very scarce article. There were hardly, 

 fifty years ago, so many flowers in the whole 

 winter up to March, through the entire Germany 

 as there are now used during the holidays in the 

 city of New York alone. Greenhouses began to 

 look bright from March ist. All the people cared 

 for was to have plenty of flowers for their exhibi- 

 tions, which took place in April when masses of 

 camellias, azaleas, French roses, exquisite cinerar- 

 ias, and all leading plants in bloom were exhibited 



