45 APPENDIX. 



gated blossoms, ever beautiful and bright, making itself too com- 

 mon, to be rare, but certainly very gay and lively, forming at the 

 present day an indispensable appendage to the flower garden. 

 Who would recognize the old fashioned China Aster, since, by 

 the florist's hands, it has been transformed into the magnificent 

 French Peony, or pyramidal bouquet German Aster? Or the 

 Dahlia, as we first saw it thirty years since ; who would then 

 have conceived of its gorgeousness at the present day, or that so 

 many generations of " Ne plus ultras, Incomparables, Standard 

 of Perfection, and Marvels," should be superseded by other races 

 yet more perfect ; or that such hosts of " Kings, Queens, Lords, 

 Ladies, and Forget-me-nots," should be so soon forgotten and cast 

 forever in the shade ? 



Then the Gillyflower, Petunia, Balsam, Chrysanthemum, Phlox, 

 Hollyhock, and other old denizens of the flower garden, how 

 have they been transformed, arid their varieties multiplied! 



What an unlimited field for future improvements opens before 

 us ! We shall never arrive at perfection, but great improve- 

 ments are yet to be made in many new as well as the old races. 

 We do not hold that the excitement and pleasure incident to the 

 improvement and cultivation of a flower garden will wholly re- 

 move the ills and troubles of life ; but it is an occupation that 

 has a tendency to* remove many disquietudes of the mind, and 

 gives employment for many odd moments, that would otherwise 

 be spent in brooding over some real or imaginary evil. We 

 think Cowper came near the truth, when he said : 



"The spleen is seldom felt where Flora reigns ; 

 The lowering eye, the petulance, the frown, 

 And sullen sadness, that o'ershade, distort, 

 And mar the face of beauty, when no cause 

 For such immeasurable woe appears ; 

 These Flora banishes, and gives the fair, 

 Sweet smile and bloom, less transient than her own.*' 



We will now proceed to record some improvements that have 

 been made in old flowers, the introduction of new sorts, or to 

 notice some that were forgotten in the first edition of this work, 



