io Chrysanthemum Culture for America. 



for many weeks the notables of rank, as well as the peasants 

 in holiday attire, join in the happy festivities. The fetes are 

 always held in the evenings and the grounds are beautifully 

 illuminated, presenting a scene brilliant beyond description. 

 His Majesty also opens his gardens at the Imperial Palace on 

 this grand fete day. All the highest native officials and foreign 

 residents of distinction are present, and invitations are highly 

 prized and much sought after. It is one of the few occasions 

 when the Empress is to be seen in public. She delights in 

 having the most dainty handkerchiefs of gauze embroidered 

 in chrysanthemums of all colors. Her ladies of honor also 

 appear in gorgeous dresses with chrysanthemums worked upon 

 them. Upon this occasion the display of the national flower 

 is said to be unequaled. Nowhere can they be found in such 

 profusion, so fully developed and brilliant in color, while the 

 rich imperial violet silk with which the tents and buildings are 

 draped bear upon them the heraldic kiku in all its pristine 

 loveliness. As the day draws to a close the people return to 

 their homes to complete the slow process of intoxication by 

 drinking saki, into which are thrown the blooms of chrysan- 

 themums, which they suppose will preserve them from evil 

 the coming year. 



The varieties cultivated in Japan are numerous, many of 

 them having exquisite beauty, as the importations of late 

 years attest. True, they may not have Ada Spaulding, Mrs. 

 Carnegie, Mrs. W. K. Harris, or any of the American prize 

 winners, but we believe their wealth of beautiful sorts is yet 

 far from exhausted, and we may expect in the not distant 

 future, through the indomitable enterprise of the American 

 importer, to have representatives of all the most desirable 

 sorts now grown by our Japanese friends blossoming in exhi- 

 bition halls of our American cities. Judging from the new 

 type of chrysanthemums of which Mrs. Alpheus Hardy and 

 Louis Boehmer are forerunners in the United States, we can- 



