THE VALUE OF WHITE FLOWERS 353 



interesting as the distribution of colour, and especially 

 the dominance of white flowers in any landscape or 

 garden in which they appear. 



In your last letter you speak of the preponderance 

 of white among the flowering shrubs as well as the 

 early blossoms of spring. That this is the case is 

 one of the strong points in the decorative value of 

 shrubs, and in listing seeds for the hardy or summer 

 beds or sorting the bushes for the rosary, great care 

 should be taken to have a liberal sprinkling of white, 

 for the white in the flower kingdom is what the 

 diamond is in the mineral world, necessary as a 

 setting for all other colours, as well as for its own 

 intrinsic worth. 



Look at a well- cut sapphire of flawless tint. It is 

 beautiful surely, but in some way its depth of colour 

 needs illumination. Surround it with evenly matched 

 diamonds and at once life enters into it. 



Fill a tall jar with spires of larkspur of the purest 

 blue known to garden flowers. Unless the sun shines 

 fully on them they seem to swallow light; mingle 

 with them some stalks of white foxgloves, Canter- 

 bury bells, or surround them with Madonna lilies, 

 a fringe of spirea, or the slender Deutzia gracilis, more 

 frequently seen in florists' windows than in the garden, 



