AN ESSAY. 187 



tinue? If you answer affirmatively I shall try 

 " mind " I don't say I will, to be less confused and 

 enigmatic in my narrative, and "If you choose that, 

 then I am yours withal." 



It occurs to me that before preparing the materials 

 for the cultivation of our BOOT, it would not be out of 

 place to recall to mind an episode a reminiscence of 

 a " Horticultural Exhibition" the first one I have 

 attended in my life in America in Brooklyn, in 

 1840. I now forget the locality and even partly the 

 plants exhibited. There were not many, but passable, 

 even good for the time. Then, the Camellia and 

 Dahliomania, fever fanaticism, which you may pre- 

 fer, were reaching their paroxysm. It was a furor, a 

 rage, as the Orchidemy, Orchidomania, epiphytal 

 fanaticism of our days. Nothing was worth looking 

 at but a newly grafted camellia, with one or two leaves, 

 and occasionally a few more, or Dahlia cutting, in 

 three or four-inch pots, selling $1, $2, $3 to $20 apiece. 

 We saw one plant (a dahlia), named Ne Plus Ultra, 

 sold for twenty dollars to a gentleman still living in 

 Boston. That Ne Plus Ultra was, and proved to be, 

 a first-rate humbug. The possessor of that plant, 

 Mr. George Thorburn, of New York city, had bought 

 it in England for the moderate price 10, for one root. 

 .Does not that make a dahlia grower's mouth water! 



