1895.] TRANSACTIONS. 13 



what could look better than Pinks or Roses thrown tosfether in 

 vases without being tied in bunches of customary formal stiff- 

 ness ! It would appear a happy conceit to designate some 

 certain species, or variety, of flowering plant as a pUce de 

 resifitance for a given day ; the whole to be supplemented by 

 what, for lack of a better term, might well be styled floral 

 display. Rose, Iris, Sweet Pea, Hollyhock, Antirrhinum, 

 Gladiolus, Aster, Lilium Speciosum — can you not, from that 

 almost unlimited catalogue of fragrance and beauty select each 

 week such as shall uphold the standard of Floriculture, leaving 

 it discretionary with the judge to recognize signal merit over 

 and beyond the specialty? There are species, perhaps simple 

 varieties, which constitute the main army, so to speak ; and 

 there are others, if not so meritorious, yet of such distinctive 

 character as to justify their enrolment among the skirmishers. 

 Wide opportunity for the display of taste in due arrangement : 

 for the apposition of flowers with especial regard to harmony of 

 tints without too violent contrast ; is thereby afforded the indi- 

 vidual left to his own judgment free from arbitrary restrictions. 

 Such pretty devices as some which charmed the spectator on 

 August 15, for example, cannot soon, nor easily, be forgotten. 

 The entire conception, even if the ideal is imperfectly carried 

 out, is yet a positive step forward, insomuch as it illustrates 

 concrete beauty of the flower itself rather than color whose very 

 brilliance is blurred by its mass. And that mass, not being 

 desirable intrinsically, should not become an object of our 

 bounty. 



Throughout our series of Exhibitions, in that era of delirium 

 wherein horticultural ambition aimed to see how laro;e a collec- 

 tion might be accumulated, rather than what should be its 

 quality, we w^ere wont to fill Mechanics and Washburn Halls to 

 overflowing. The gross, unnatural heap of this, that, and the 

 other, blurred the vision and confused the judgment. Living 

 longer, we became wiser. But that which we long since out- 

 grew and therefore discarded, seems to be adopted by our gentle 

 friends — the enemy — over on Agricultural Street, who assimilate 

 their prey in bulk, after it has been crushed in the folds of their 



