Editor's Preface 



he did so with power, because he was able 

 to point out one special but very large blot 

 in the system. He showed that it led to an 

 utter ignorance of, and an almost wicked 

 contempt for, the beauty of individual flowers. 

 The flower in itself had become nothing, it 

 was but one small spot in a large mass of 

 colour, and had no value except in so far 

 as it helped the mass. His words were: 

 " Our flower beds are mere masses of colour, 

 instead of an assemblage of living beings : 

 the plant is never old, never young, it de- 

 generates from a plant into a coloured orna- 

 ment" 'The trumpet gave no uncertain sound, 

 and it did its work against the most de- 

 termined opposition especially from gardeners 

 and nurserymen and one thing that helped 

 to the final victory was his often-repeated 

 advice to study and love the wild flowers. 

 With the advocates of bedding-out these could 

 have no place, but Forbes Watson showed that 

 the study of plant life and plant beauty could 

 be carried on without the help of grand 

 exotics or Museum Herbaria; that the plant 

 lover would find all he wanted in the fields 

 and hedgerows of his own land; and that 



the more he studied them there, the more he 

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