viii PREFATORY NOTE 



time to time amply confirmed. For instance, I 

 have never seen anything to surpass, and seldom 

 anything to equal, either in general character and 

 effect, or in its detail, Mr. Felton's artistic floral 

 treatment, after the Japanese fashion, of Claridge's 

 Hotel on the occasion when His Excellency the 

 Japanese Ambassador and Madame Kato received 

 His Imperial Highness Prince Nashimoto of Japan, 

 in the summer of last year ; and the same remark 

 applies to other decorative schemes by Mr. Felton 

 which have come under my notice, including those 

 of table-decoration at the shows and social gather- 

 ings of the National Chrysanthemum Society and 

 at many similar functions. 



And in other ways Mr. Felton has also advanced 

 both the science and art of Floriculture, especially 

 in the selection, distribution, and arrangement, at 

 the shows of the Royal Horticultural Society and 

 other floral exhibitions, of those flowers which are 

 bearers of beauty of form, colour, and perfume into 

 the homes which they brighten and adorn. For 

 flowers create and cultivate in the human heart the 

 highest and purest emotions; they teach and reward 

 habits of care, confidence, tenderness, patience, and 

 perseverance, and also of reverence for are they 

 not the sweetest messengers of God to man ? 



