60 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1894. 



iug all kinds of character. There are some elegant specimens of 

 Camellia Japonica, in every shade of color. They compose a hedge 

 of Howers twenty feet high, six feet in diameter, and extending five 

 hundred feet in length. It was a sheet of flowers when I saw it. 

 Near by was a Daphne odoratissima, eight feet in diameter and full 

 of bnds ; also beautiful specimens of umbrella pines and gardenias. 



The Yokohama Gardeners' Association grounds cover 200 acres of 

 land ; include greenhouses and stores too numerous to mention, and 

 the floral and nursery business is carried on in the most perfect man- 

 ner. Palms, pseonies, plums, cherries, evergreens, magnolias, and 

 all classes of shrubs are in cultivation ; also 600 to 800 varieties of 

 chrysanthemums, including about seventy altogether new ones, which 

 I obtained. But the most curious feature of all, was the hundreds of 

 thousands of dwarf trees from five to 500 years old, the most beauti- 

 ful collection of its kind in the world. It is impossible to buy any 

 plants from a private garden. The gentry are as proud as the most 

 ancient of British nobility. It is necessary to cultivate personal 

 acquaintance with the proprietor, who, if assured the plant desired is 

 only for private use in another country, may present a specimen, I 

 visited nearly 100 such places in Yokohama, and every commercial 

 place of note, gathering one or two choice things in each. 



Tokio, the capital of Japan, was the next point visited. There are 

 many temples with grandly timbered grounds, where many children, 

 with their dapper little mothers, meet and pass the hours in the hap- 

 piest manner possible. The palace of the Mikado is a large and 

 handsome structure, surrounded by most beautiful grounds. Tokio 

 contains many other gardens scarcely inferior, all of which are care- 

 fully kept, and contain most curious trees and shrubs. The imperial 

 gardens are difticult of access, even when the Mikado is absent. 

 However, I managed to gain favor, and feasted my eyes on the vision 

 of beauty for a time. Tokio abounds in elegant parks and drives, 

 and possesses a museum which would put to shame many of those 

 seen in Europe. In the great park may be seen almost every kind of 

 animal known in zoology. The Imperial Botanic Garden contains 

 one of the largest collections of named plants in the world. A botan- 

 ical student, whom I met there, told me there were no less than 18,000 

 named varieties of plants in those grounds. Dangozaka, the great 

 chrysanthemum garden, is on the slope of a hill. In this place it has 

 long been a custom to arrange these flowers to represent living nota- 

 ble persons, also birds and animals, or to tell of some historical event. 

 On entering the grounds, flags and bunting seem to invite the visitor 



