DISPOSITION OF FLO\\ERS IN PARKS 



and when used for ornament only, is governed in its placing by certain 

 existing lines in the design of the coat or other garment which it is 

 supposed to embellish. Let but three buttons be attached to a woman's 

 gown at random, and she will become an object of curiosity; let them 

 be placed with mischievous intent and she can be turned into an object 

 of ridicule; let them be of three different sizes and colours, — but why 

 continue the sacrilege! And yet nine out of ten American parks have 

 not only three but a half dozen or a dozen similar circular spots of 

 all sizes and every colour deposited like random buttons over its 

 green areas. 



Round flower-beds are usually scattered much as seeds by the 

 sower; some fall in the shade, and perish for want of sun; some on 

 poor ground, and wither and die from lack of nourishment ; and some 

 on good ground, and they blossom forth amazingly. Would they 

 were all like the chaff which tlie wind bloweth away ! 



But to return to the former simile, a button is placed not only in 

 reference to lines of design, as for instance in the second row of buttons 

 up the front of a man's double-breasted coat when only one row is 

 needed, but even in form has a meaning. A button is round, because 

 in that form it is most easily passed through a button-hole ; square or 

 triangular, it becomes like the camel and the needle's eye, as any man 

 knows who has struggled with angular-shaped cuff buttons. A flower- 

 bed, on the other hand, has no particular reason for being round. It 

 could just as well be square, or hexagonal or diamond-shaped, so far 

 as usefulness is concerned, for it has no use. It has no better reason 

 for being round than a cookie ! 



NO LIMIT IN PROFUSION 



" But are we to have no flowers in the parks? " someone will ask- 

 Assuredly yes, for these are not Calvinistic times, when a flower is a 

 sinful thing. We may have flowers and plenty of them, but placed 



280 



