Scientific Intelligence — Botany. 197 



pleasures presented to us by the culture of flowering plants, there 

 are few that exceed what we experience from the sight of a multi- 

 tude of flowers, varying in their colour, form, and size, and in their 

 arrangement upon the stem that supports them. It is probably 

 owing to the admiration bestowed individually upon each, and to the 

 attachment bestowed upon them in consequence of the great care they 

 have required, that care has hitherto not been taken to arrange them 

 in such a manner as to produce the best possible effect upon the eye, 

 not only separately, but collectively. Nothing, therefore, is more 

 common than a delect of proportion observed in the manner in which 

 flowers of the same colour are made to recur in a garden. At one 

 time the eye sees nothing but blue or white, at another it is dazzled 

 by yellow scattered around in profusion ; the evil eff'ect of a predo- 

 minating colour may be further augmented when the flowers are of 

 approximating, but still different shades of colour. For instance, in 

 the spring, we meet with the jonquil of a brilliant yellow, side by 

 side with the pale yellow of the narcissus ; in the autumn the Indian 

 pink may be seen next to the China rose and the aster, and dahlias of 

 diff"erent red grouped together, &g. Approximations like these pro- 

 duce upon the eye of a person accustomed to judge of the effects of 

 the contrast of colours, sensations that are quite aa disagreeable as 

 those experienced by the ear of the musician, when struck by dis- 

 cordant sounds. 



The principal rule to be observed in the arrangement of flowers is 

 to place the blue next to the orange, and the violet next to the yel- 

 low, whilst red and pink flowers are never seen to greater advantage 

 than when surrounded by verdure and by white flowers ; the latter 

 may also be advantageously dispersed among groups formed of blue 

 and orange, and of violet and yellow flowers. For although a clump 

 of white flowers may produce but little effect when seen apart, it 

 cannot be denied that the same flowers must be considered as indis- 

 pensable to the adornment of a garden when they ure seen suitably 

 distributed amongst gruups of flowers whose colours have been 

 assorted according to the law of contrast ; it will be observed by those 

 who may be desirous of putting in practice the precepts we have been 

 inculcating, that there are periods of the horticultural year when 

 white flowers are not sufficiently multiplied by cultivation to enable 

 us to derive the greatest possible advantage from the flora of our 

 gardens. I will further add, that plants, whose flowers are to pro- 

 duce a contrast, should be of the same size, and, in many cases, the 

 colour of the sand or gravel composing the ground of the walks or 

 beds of a garden, may be made to conduce to the general effect. 



In laying down the preceding rules, I do not pretend to assert 

 that an arrangement of colours, dift'erent from those mentioned may 

 not please the eye ; but 1 mean to say that, in adhering to them, 

 we may always bo certain of producing assemblages of colour con- 

 formable to good taste, whilst we hhould not be equally sure of suc- 

 cebs in making other arrangements. I shall, however, revert to this 

 point. 



