The Charm of Color 239 



plants of such modest bearing are weeds, and pull 

 them up, with many other precious seedlings of 

 the old garden, in their desire to have ample expanse 

 of naked dirt. One of the charms which was per- 

 mitted to the old garden was its fulness. Nature 

 there certainly abhorred a vacant space. The garden 

 soil was full of resources ; it had a seed for every 

 square inch ; it seemed to have a reserve store ready 

 to crowd into any space offered by the removal or 

 dying down of a plant at any time. 



Let me tell of a curious thing I found in an old 

 book, anent our subject green flowers. It shows 

 that we must not accuse our modern sensation 

 lovers, either in botany or any other science, of 

 being the only ones to add artifice to nature. The 

 green Carnation has been chosen to typify the 

 decadence and monstrosity of the end of the nine- 

 teenth century ; but nearly two hundred years ago 

 a London fruit and flower grower, named Richard 

 Bradley, wrote a treatise upon field husbandry and 

 garden culture, and in it he tells of a green Carna- 

 tion which " a certayn fryar " produced by grafting 

 a Carnation upon a Fennel stalk. The flowers 

 were green for several years, then nature overcame 

 decadent art. 



There be those who are so enamoured of the color 

 green and of foliage, that they care little for flowers 

 of varied tint ; even in a garden, like the old poet 

 Marvell, they deem, 



"No white nor red was ever seen 

 So amorous as this lovely green." 



