^ MODERN PANSY CULTURE 159 



RECENT IMPROVEMENTS 



Why this silence? Probably because the 

 pansy's fragrance, like its varied, velvety colors, 

 is a product of modern civilization and gradual 

 intensification. Gerard, a sixteenth-century 

 writer, said of the pansies of his time: "smel 

 they have little or none." At that time the 

 only colors worn by the heartsease were purple, 

 yellow, and white or blue. 



These old pansies, in truth, were little better 

 than the Johnny -jump-ups we find in neglected 

 gardens to-day. You have no reason to envy 

 your grandmother. She, poor dear, never saw 

 any pansies bigger or more alluringly colored 

 than the common violets of the shaded road- 

 side, and not so fragrant. Not till about a cen- 

 tury ago were successful attempts made to 

 educate this flower into something rich and 

 strange. In the moist, cool climate of England, 

 and still more of Scotland, the improved varieties 

 flourished. 



In 1830 a man named Thompson, gardener to 

 Lord Gambier, introduced the first pansies 

 with the blotches on the lower petals which 

 now are taken for granted in the finest flowers. 

 He also succeeded in changing the blossoms, 

 which before him had been "lengthy as a horse's 

 head," into the rounder shapes we admire. He 

 took no merit to himself for originating the 

 modern pansy, for, as he said, "it was entirely 

 the offspring of chance. In looking one morning 



