32 THE CAIINATION MANUAL. 



to insist that all flowers should be drawn as they 

 are. The artist should never be influenced by any 

 " rules " or " ideals " whatever, but be allowed to 

 draw wliat he sees. This all conscientious artists 

 expect, and it is the barest justice. If we succeed 

 in developing new races, or what we consider perfect 

 flowers, let the artist see them as they are, and 

 draw them as he sees them, without the confusion 

 of drawing impossible hybrids between what he sees 

 and what he is told is perfection in a flower. It was 

 the want of this artistic honesty, so to say, which 

 has left us so worthless a record m illustrated 

 journals of the past, where the artist was always 

 told to keep to the florist's " ideal " as to what the 

 flower should be. Hence the number of plates of 

 flowers of many kinds, all drawn with the compass 

 and quite worthless as a record ! 



There are so many difliculties in the way of repro- 

 ducing a faithful drawing when Ave get it — I mean 

 in suflicient numbers for popular use — that it is all 

 the more necessary to abohsh the fatal source of 

 error here pointed out. Grow as many beautiful 

 flowers as you can, but commit them to the artist's 

 care without a word of comment, and so aboUsh for 

 ever the ridiculous painted lies which abound in 

 the pictorial gardening literature of the past, and 

 which have indeed existed up till quite recently. 

 The system lent itself to fraud as well as ugliness, 

 as, for instance, in the case of manufacturing a new 



