16 Taste in Horticulture and in Designs. 



vine, has its rules of culture, whether espalier or standard. 

 The better they are trained, the more orderly they look, and 

 the more certain the anticipated result. As, in every thing 

 which requires attention, there are, and must be always, rules 

 to be observed and methods to be employed, so, particularly 

 in the order and management of the garden, there must be a 

 similar propriety, to be strictly and rigidly regarded. 



It is on the just appreciation and nice tact acquired, of these 

 facts, that the skill of the florist depends. He not only is the 

 experimenter on the nature and properties of the soils best 

 adapted to the luxuriant or more natural growth of plants, 

 but he must combine the talent of a discriminating taste on 

 the future arrangement of their growing and flowering. To 

 a certain extent only can art overcome nature ; and excess of 

 care may prove as fatal, in some cases, as its want. The na- 

 tive habits of plants ought to be known. We should not ex- 

 pect to see the delicacy and tenderness of some species, whose 

 native growth is usually sheltered by situations combining 

 shade and moisture, exhibit themselves in a transplanted suc- 

 cessful culture, exposed to the sun, and chilled by the change- 

 ful winds : nor should we anticipate a gorgeous exhibition of 

 brilliancy, in tints of petal or foliage, where heat or light were 

 insufficient. These same remarks hold good in the artistical 

 arrangement of the growing plant, so that it may adapt itself 

 to its unnatural situation, and imitate nature as much as its 

 circumstances allow. In this, nature should be regarded as 

 much as art will permit : for when either are forced out of 

 their legitimate sphere, the eflect must be always and un- 

 questionably bad. 



We have spoken of the skill of the florist in setting out the 

 particular merits of new species and varieties, so as to show 

 their best points, and at the same time to permit and even 

 invite the eye of the beholder to detect at once the difterence. 

 It is well known that some quite choice varieties difler so 

 little from the older ones, that such skill is necessary to make 

 their merit appreciated. Sometimes it consists in the better 

 shading of the petal, sometimes in the deeper green of the 

 foliage, and sometimes in the straighter or cleaner contour of 

 the stem. Judicious pruning frequently obviates unpropitious 

 characteristics, or ingeniously contrived apparatus overcomes, 



