46 HORTICULTURE. 



readers say, " we do." We have carefully studied the matter, until 

 it has become a fact past all contradiction. They may love to 

 " potter " a little. Three or four times in the spring they take a 

 fancy to examine the color of the soil a few inches below the sur- 

 face ; they sow some China Asters, and plant a few Dahlias, and it 

 is all over. Love flowers, with all their hearts, they certainly do. 

 Few things are more enchanting to them than a fine garden ; and 

 bouquets on their centre tables are positive necessities, with every 

 lady, from Maine to the Rio Grande. 



Now, we certainly have all the love of nature of our English 

 forefathers. We love the country ; and a large part of the mil- 

 lions, earned every year by our enterprise, is spent in creating and 

 embellishing country homes. But, on the contrary, our wives and 

 daughters only love gardens as the French love them for the 

 results. They love to walk through them ; hey enjoy the beauty 

 and perfume of their products, but only as amateurs. They know 

 no more of that intense enjoyment of her who plans, creates, and 

 daily watches the growth of those gardens or flowers, no more of 

 that absolute, living enjoyment, which the English have in out-of- 

 door pursuits, than a mere amateur, who goes through a fine gal- 

 lery of pictures, knows of the intensified emotions which the painters 

 of those pictures experienced in ilieir souls, when they gazed on the 

 gradual growth and perfected splendor of their finest master-pieces. 



As it is plain, from our love of the country, that we are not French 

 at heart, this manifestation that we complain of, must come from 

 our natural tendency to copy the social manners of the most 

 polished nation in the world. And it is indeed quite wonderful 

 how, being scarcely in the least affected by the morale, we still bor- 

 row almost instinctively, and entirely without being aware of it, so 

 much from la, Belle France. That our dress, mode of life, and in- 

 tercourse, is largely tinged with French taste, every traveller notices. 

 But it goes farther. Even the plans of our houses become more and 

 more decidedly French. We have had occasion, lately, to make 

 considerable explorations in the domestic architecture of France and 

 England, and we have noticed some striking national peculiarities. 

 One of these relates to the connection of the principal apartments. 

 In a French house, the beau ideal is to have every thing ensuite ; 



