FRANKNESS AND GARDENING 211 



and unless one is of the temperament that seeks the 

 cause behind the effect, it might never be realized. 



The Japanese have long since arrived at a method 

 of arranging flowers which is quality and intrinsic value 

 as opposed to miscellaneous quantity. The way of 

 nature, however, it seems to me, is twofold, for there are 

 flowers that depend for beauty, and this with nature 

 that seems only another word for perpetuity, upon the 

 strength of numbers, as well as those that make a more 

 individual appeal. The composite flowers daisies, 

 asters, goldenrod belong to the class that take natu- 

 rally to massing, while the blue flag, meadow and wood 

 lilies, together with the spiked orchises, are typical of 

 the second. 



By the same process of comparison I have decided 

 that jars and vases having floral decorations themselves 

 are wholly unsuitable for holding flowers. They should 

 be cherished as bric-a-brac, when they are worthy speci- 

 mens of the art of potter and painter, but as receptacles 

 for flowers they have no use beyond holding sprays of 

 beautiful foliage or silver-green masses of ferns. 



Porcelain, plain in tint and of carefully chosen colours, 

 such as beef-blood, the old rose, and peach-blow hues, in 

 which so many simple forms and inexpensive bits of 

 Japanese pottery may be bought, a peculiar creamy 



