20 Cypripedia. 



My C. Pcarcci is growing rapidly, and pushing shoots in ever)' direction. 

 There are already eight or ten shoots upon the plant, including the old 

 growths. It is a very free-growing and free-flowering species ; and will, 

 when better known, undoubtedly be very popular. 



Bidding a final adieu to the Cypripcdiiim family-circle, so far as the pages 

 of this journal are concerned, I will proceed with some general observa- 

 tions upon the subject of aesthetics, and especially aesthetic botany, con- 

 tinuing and concluding the ideas with which I began these papers upon 

 Cypripedia. 



Certain practical persons are wont to slightly esteem those who give 

 thought to the study of flowers, and to depreciate those who minister to 

 the finer needs, the imaginative wants, of the race ; believing themselves 

 more important and more honorable facts in the social economy of civiliza- 

 tion, because they are devoted to occupations that help man to eat and 

 drink, and that bear upon the necessities of human life. But they are 

 mistaken about even the social and commercial importance of things that 

 are "the delight of the eye and the pride of life." The five senses of man 

 have a positive weight in the scheme of human enterprise ; for pleasure, 

 that is the gratification of these senses, is the moving cause of almost all 

 business. It has been remarked by an able writer upon political science, 

 that " it is upon the tastes, the fancies, the passions, of mankind, that those 

 sublime productions of human ingenuity known as systems of finance and 

 taxation ultimately rest." 



The organization and elevation of these tastes, fancies, and passions, is 

 the aim of sesthetics. It seeks to raise men out of the lower ranges of 

 human life into a spiritual region where the sentiments are in active exer- 

 cise, and where investments are made in spiritual stocks which pay dividends 

 in ideal wealth. 



We study out the best and most economical principles for the application 

 of our labor, and leave our tastes and sentiments to be governed by animal 

 instincts. Why, even the " vegetable population, which covers and adorns 

 the globe," glories in instincts. The rcots of plants show such vital instinct 

 in the search for food, and in other ways, that Bonnet, the Swiss naturalist, 

 observed with reference to it, that it was sometimes difficult to distinguish 



