The Strange Story of the Flowers 



upon such of these "sports" as he chooses and 

 make them the confirmed habits of his wards. 

 Take a stroll through his parterres and green- 

 houses, where side by side he shows you pai 

 of myriad tints and the modest little wild violets 

 of kindred to the pansies' ancestral stock. Let 

 him contrast for you roses, asters, tuberous 

 begonias, hollyhocks, dahlias, pelargoniums, 

 before cultivation and since. Were wild flowers 

 clay, were the gardener both painter and sculptor, 

 he could not have wrought marvels more gl< >rious 

 than these. In a few years the brethren of his 

 guild have brought about a rev< >luti< >n for which, 

 if possible at all to her, nature in the open fields 

 would ask long centuries. And the gardener's 

 experiments with these strange children of his 

 have all the charm of surprise. No passive 

 chooser is he of "sports" of promise, but an 

 active matchmaker between flowers often brought 

 together from realms as far apart as Frame and 

 China. Sometimes his experiment is an instant 

 success. Mr. William Paul, a famous creator of 

 splendid Hewers, tells us that at a time when 

 climbing roses were either white or yellow, he 

 thought he would like to produce one of bright 

 dark colour. Accordingly he mated the Rose 

 Athelin, of vivid crimson, with Russelliana, a 

 hardy climber, and 1^, the fl< >wer he had imagined 

 and longed for stood revealed ! But this hitting 

 the mark at the first shot is uncommon good 

 fortune with the gardener. No experience with 

 primrose or chrysanthemum is long and varied 

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