THE IMPROVEMENT OF GARDEN 

 FLOWERS 



THE first article upon this subject provoked 

 some controversy, but it also elicited more ex- 

 pressions of agreement than the writer had expected. 

 It seems to be clear that the taste in flowers is chang- 

 ing; that a great many gardeners are no longer con- 

 tented merely with large blossoms; that we are 

 learning to look at a plant as a whole, and not to 

 think of it only as a flower-producing machine. A 

 writer in one paper, disagreeing violently with the 

 article in question, said that it was worse than use- 

 less to set up principles of taste, since they were sure 

 to be wrong or else to be misapplied. It did not ap- 

 parently occur to him that all selection or improve- 

 ment of flowers must be based upon some principle 

 of taste or other. Otherwise it would be quite random 

 and objectless. The issue is not between principles 

 of taste and no principles, but between one principle 

 and another. Now, the development of a great many 

 garden flowers has been controlled by the principle 

 that a plant is a flower-producing machine and that 

 every part of it except the flower is mere surplusage. 

 The ideal of this development would be reached in 

 a plant that came up like a mushroom, leafless, and 



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