Extrinsic and Intrinsic Views 127 



America is a land of cut flowers. Nowhere 

 does the cut-flower trade assume such command- 

 ing importance. Churches and homes are deco- 

 rated with them. One sees the churches of the 

 Old World decorated with plants in pots or 

 tubs. The Englishman or the German loves 

 to care for the plant from the time* it sprouts 

 until it dies: it is a companion. The American 

 snips off its head and puts it in his buttonhole: 

 it is an ornament. I have sometimes wondered 

 whether the average flower-buyer knows that 

 flowers grow on plants. 



All of us have known persons who derive 

 more satisfaction from a poor plant that never 

 blooms than others do from a bunch of Amer- 

 ican Beauty roses at five dollars. There is 

 individuality — I had almost said personality — 

 in a growing, living plant, but there is Httle of 

 It in a detached flower. And it does not matter 

 so much if the plant is poor and weakly and 

 scrawny. Do we not love poor and crippled 

 and crooked people? A plant in the room on 

 washday is worth more than a bunch of flowers 

 on Sunday. 



