THE VIEWS OF NATURE 99 



cherished. Love of books increases. All this 

 marks the growth of the intellectual life. 



America is aland of cut flowers. Nowhere does 

 the cut-flower trade assume such commanding 

 importance. Churches and homes are decorated 

 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. 

 Flowers are fleeting. 



All of us have known people who derive more 

 satisfaction from a poor plant that never blooms 

 than others do from a bunch of American Beauty 

 roses at $5. There is individuality I had almost 

 said personality in a growing, living plant, but 

 there is little of it about a detached flower. And 

 it does not matter so much if the plant is poor 

 and weakly and scrawny. DoTwe 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. 



But the American taste is rapidly changing. 

 Each year the florist's trade sees a proportionately 

 greater demand for^ plants., The same change is 

 seen in the parks and home grounds. More and 

 more the gross carpet-beds are relegated to those 

 parts of the grounds that are devoted to curios- 

 ities, or they are omitted altogether, and in their 



