44 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1904. 



ing to the owjier's taste, there is the Imperial Chrysanthemum 

 Party, as much a social function as a flower display. In various 

 exhibits wonderful masses of bloom are seen, and marvelous 

 individual plants, so trained that when in flower they perfectly 

 represent forms of beasts, of architecture, or natural scenery. 

 Street displays are common, where for half a mile the sides 

 of the street are banked with plants in bloom, their roots care- 

 fully bound in straw, and all for sale at prices that to us seem 

 ridiculously small. Three cents will secure a chrysanthemum 

 tree of perfect symmetry, spreading from a trunk eight or ten 

 inches high into a mass of branches bearing thousands of dainty 

 blossoms; or the same sum will buy its neighbor plant, a grace- 

 ful, slender twin-stalk with bending heads of tangled hair 

 rich in color as the golden sun. 



The Japanese find no difficulty in moving living plants, be 

 they large or small. The roots are gathered in a compact 

 ball and wound with straw, thus suffering transportation 

 without apparent injury. These chrysanthemums in full bloom 

 are carried in carts, handled with apparent carelessness and 

 yet remain unwilted. So with trees. A common sight in the 

 park of the old imperial palace is the moving of trees from 

 place to place, their roots cut and bound in like manner and 

 receiving as little injury. To account in part for this skill, 

 acquired by long experience, it may be said that the trees 

 planted in the ground do not loecome a part of the estate, but 

 remain the owner's personal property, to be removed by him, 

 if, having rented a house, he now desires to move to another. 



Every Japanese is to some extent a skilled gardener; and 

 in this connection I wish to speak of their mode of culture. 

 In the first place, they care but little for what we call cut-flowers. 

 Hence their culture is rather of trees and flowering shrubs, 

 of plants to be admired as they grow or which yield themselves 

 to their peculiar style of flower-arrangement, than of such as 

 find their chief beauty in the bloom alone. A Japanese garden 

 is a thing of wonder. It is a work of highest art, yet in utmost 

 harmony with nature. A firmly fixed body of conventions 

 govern the gardener's efforts. The scenery of the country is 



