28 BRECK'S BOOK OF FLOWERS. 



OLD-FASHIONED FLOWERS NOT TO BE DISCARDED. 



In selecting for the garden, it should be borne in mind that 

 many of the new varieties of flowers, of recent introduction 

 trumpeted forth, in advertisements and catalogues, as being 

 " exquisite, superb, unsurpassed," &c., are, many of them, 

 greatly inferior to the old and highly esteemed varieties of the 

 old-fashioned gardens. These time-honored denizens of the 

 flower-garden should not be discarded as antiquated and out 

 of fashion. My opinion is fully expressed in the following 

 article from the Gardener's Chronicle : 



" Among the many follies which the gardening world com- 

 mits, none is more striking to the looker-on, than the eagerness 

 with which old favorites are deserted for new ones. Of all 

 inconstant lovers, gardeners must surely be the most incon* 

 stant. To-day they are at the feet of a Dahlia ; to-morrow 

 there is no beauty like a Pansy, and both are presently deserted 

 for a Cineraria. In their eyes, old age is a crime, and aged 

 flowers are mercilessly consigned to the poor-house. We 

 remember when Cape plants were the rage ; a Brunsvigia, or 

 an Ixia, or a Protea, were standing toasts ; to possess such fair 

 objects was the height of man's ambition. But in a few years 

 these were thrown aside, and New Holland beauties supplanted 

 them ; to be succeeded by the flaunting, or shy and delicate, 

 natives of South America. If we^pok to an old garden cata- 

 logue, we can but wonder how the flpwer-garden was decorated 

 by our fathers ; for there we find little besides races now known 

 only by name. 



" Marigolds and Candytufts, Love-lies-bleeding, Globes and 

 Balsams, Catchflies and Cockscombs, Daisies and Dittany, 

 Persicarias and Prince's Feather, Lupins, Tricolors and Mar- 

 vels of Peru, Sunflowers and Sweet Sultans, pride of the 

 eighteenth century, ye have all fallen victims to the flicker- 

 ing meteor called taste ; and are now only to be found in the 

 old drawers of old seed-shops, where you are but the curios- 



