I'^n 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER, 



OCTOBER 10, 1839. 



of Charlrstnwn, containing- specimens of Stapclia 

 pulchella, and Bignonia Evansiana, was mucli ad- 

 mired. 



Cut flowers of various descriptions from T. Lee, 

 Esq. Col. Wilder, E. Breed, Esq. Hon. E. Vose, 

 Messrs Richardson, Phipps, Fariisnorth, Gardener, 

 Sweet-ier, Breck, Warren, Winship, flovey and Co. 

 Jno. Ilovcy, Mason, Miller, and Carter. 



From Josej)!! Breck & Co., a superb collection 

 of German Asters of every variety. Tliirtei-n dis- 

 tinct varieties of Zinnia elogan-^, of the following 

 colors:— white, blush, pink, violet, light purple, 

 dark purple, salmon, yellow, orange, light scarlet, 

 dark scarlet, light crimson, and deep crimson. — 

 Specimens of Euphorbia variogata, Centauris of 

 sorts ; improved variegated, and other Marigolds, 

 together witli great a variety of other annuals, and 

 cut flowers. 



The wreaths were made and presented by Messrs 

 D. Haggerston, J. W. Russell, and E. Sayers. 



We shall close our report with a few brief re- 

 marks, and some quotations from various authors on 

 the love, and use made of flowers by the inhabi- 

 tants of several parts of the world. 



" Flowers !" says Mr Bowring, " what a hundred 

 associations the word brings to my mind ! Of 

 what countless songs, sweet and sacred, delicate 

 and divine, are they the subject ! A flower in 

 England, [and we will add America,] is some- 

 thing to the botanist, — but only if it be rare ; to 

 the florist, — but only if it be beautiful : even the 

 poet and tlie moralizer seldom bend down to its 

 eloquent silence. The peasant never utters to it 

 an ejaculation — the ploughman (all but one) care- 

 lessly tears it up with his share — no niaistsn thinks 

 of wreathing it — no youth aspires to wotr it : but 

 in Spain ten to one but it becomes a minister of 

 love, that it hears the voice of poetry, that it 

 crowns tlie brow of beauty. Thus how sweetly 

 an anonymous cancionero sings : 



" Pill on your lirigluosl richest drc5s, 

 Wear all your gems, blest vale of ours ! 

 My fair one comes in her loveliness, 

 She comes to gather flowers. 



" Garland me wreaths, llinu fertile vale ; 

 Woods of green your coronets bring ; 

 Pinks of red, and lilies pale, 

 Come with your fragrant offering. 

 Mingle your charms of hue and smell, 

 Which Flora wakes in her spring-tide hoursi 

 My fair one comes across the dell, 

 She comes to gather flowers. 



" Twilight of morn ! from thy misty tower 

 Scalier the trembling pearls around, 

 Hang up thy gems on fruit and flower, 

 Bespangle the dewy ground ! 

 Phoebus, rest on thy ruby wheels — 

 Look, and envy this world of ours; 

 For my fair one now descends the hills, 

 She comes to gather flowers. 



" List ! for the breeze on wings serene 

 Through the light foliage snils ; 

 Hidden amidst the forest g een 

 Warble the nightingales ! 

 Hailing the glorious birth of day 

 With music's best, diviuest powers, 

 Hither my fair one bends her way, 

 She comes to gather flowers." 



London Magazine, Spanish liomanccn, No. 3. 



It was, perhaps, the general power of sympathy 



upon the subject of plants, which caused them to dressed with festoons of Arabian Jessamine and 



be connected with some of the earliest events that 

 history records. The mythologies of all nations 

 are full of them ; and in all times they have been 

 associated with the soldiery, the government, and 

 the arts. Thus the patriot was crowned with oak ; 

 the hero and the poet with bay ; and beauty with 

 the myrtle. Peace had her olive; liacchus his 

 ivy ; and whole groves of oak-trees were thought 

 to send out oracular voices in the winds. One of 

 the most pleasing parts of state-splendor has been 

 associated with flowers, as Shakspeare seems to 

 have had in his mind when he wrote that beautiful 

 line respecting the accomplished prince, Hamlet : 

 " The expectancy and rose of the fair state " 



It was this that brought the gentle family of 

 roso^ into such unnatural broils in the civil wars : 

 and still the united countries of Great Britain have 

 each a floral emblem : Scotland has its thistle, Ire- 

 land its shamrock, and England the rose. France, 

 under the Hourbons, had the golden lily. 



The different festivals in England, have each 

 their own peculiar plant or plants, to be used in 

 their celebration ; at Easter the willow as a sub- 

 stitute for the palm ; at Christmas, the holly and 

 the mistletoe ; on May-day every flower in bloom, 

 but particularly the hawthorn or May-bush. In 

 Persia they have a festival called the Feast of 

 Roses, which lasts the whole time they are in 

 bloom. Formerly, it was the custom, and still is 

 in some parts of 'tlie country, to scatter flowers on 

 the celebration of a wedding, a christening, or 

 even of a funeral. 



It was formerly the custom also, to carry gar- 

 lands before the bier of a maiden, and to hang 

 them, and scatter flowers over her grave : 



The Queen scattering flowers : 



" Sweets to the sweet. Farewell ! 

 I hoped thy hride-bed to have decked, sweet maid, 

 And not have strewed thy grave." 



Hamlet, Act v. Scene 1. 



In Tripoli, on the celebration of a wedding, the 

 baskets of sweetmeats, &c. sent as wedding pres- 

 ents, are covered with flowers ; and although it is 

 well known that they frequently communicate the 

 plague, the inhabitants will even prefer running the 

 risk, when that dreadful disease is abroad, ratlier 

 than lose the enjoyment they have in their love of 

 flowers. When a woman in Tripoli dies, a large 

 bouquet of fresh flowers, if they can be procured, if 

 not, of artificial, is fastened at the head of her 

 coffin. Upon the death of a Moorish lady of qual- 

 ity, every place is filled with fresh flowers and 

 burning perfumes : at the head of the body is placed 

 a large bouquet, of part artificial, and part natural, 

 and richly ornamented with silver : and additions 

 are continually made to it. The author who de- 

 scribes these customs also mentions a lady of high 

 rank, who regularly attended the tomb of her 

 daughter, who had been three years dead ; she al- 

 ways kept it in repair, and, with the e.Kception of 

 the great mosque, it was one of the grandest in 

 TripolL From the time of the young lady's death, 

 the tomb had always been supplied with the most 

 expensive flowers, placed in beautiful vases ; and, 

 in addition to these, a great quantity of fresh Ara- 

 bian Jessamines, threaded on thin slips of the palm- 

 leaf, were hung in festoons and tassels about this 

 revered sepulchre. The mausoleum of the royal 

 family, which is called the Turbnr, is of the purest 

 white marble, and is filled with an immense quan- 

 tity of fresh flowers ; most of the tombs being 



large bunches of variegated flowers, consisting of 

 Orange, Myrtle, Red and \\ hite Roses, &c. They 

 afford a perfume which those who are not habitua- 

 ted to such choice flowers can scarcely conceive. 

 The tombs are mostly of white, a few inlaid with 

 colored marble. A manuscript Bible, which was 

 presented by a Jew to the Synagogue, was adorned 

 with flowers ; and silver vases filled with flowers 

 were placed upon the ark which contained the sa- 

 cred XiS.* 



The ancients u.-sed wreaths of flowers in their 

 entertainments, not only for pleasure, but also from 

 a notion that their odour prevented the wine from 

 intoxicating them ; they used other perfumes on 

 the same account. Beds of flowers are not merely 

 fictitious. The Highlanders of Scotland conunonly 

 sleep on heath, which is said to make a delicious 

 bed ; and beds are, in Italy, oflen filled with the 

 leaves of trees, instead of down or feathers. It is 

 an old joke against the effeminate Sybarites, that 

 one of them complaining he had not sle|)t all night, 

 and being asked tlie reason why, said that a rose- 

 leaf had got folded under him. 



In Naples, and in the vale of Cachemere (I have 

 been told also that it sometimes occurs in Chester,) 

 gardens are formed on the roofs of houses : " On a 

 standing roof of wood is laid a covering of fine 

 earth, which shelters the building from the great 

 quantity of snow that falls in the winter season. 

 This fence communicates an equal warmth in win- 

 ter, as a refreshing coolness in summer, when the 

 tops of the houses, which are planted with a vari- 

 ety of flowers, exhibit at a distance the spacious 

 view of a beautiful chequered parterre." The fa- 

 mous hangins: gardens of IJabylon were on the 

 enormous walls of that city. 



A garden usually makes a part of every Paradise, 

 even of Mahomet's, from which women are exclu- 

 ded, — women, whom gallantry has so associated 

 with flowers, that we are told, in the .'Malay lan- 

 guage, one word serves for both.f In Milton's Par- 

 adise, the occupation of Adam and Eve was to tend 

 the flowers, to prune the luxuriant branches, and 

 support the roses, heavy with beauty. Poets have 

 taken pleasure in painting gardens in all the bril- 

 liancy of imagination. See the garden of Alci- 

 nous in Homer's Odyssey; those of Morgana, Al- 

 cina, and Armida, in the Italian poets : the gar- 

 dons fair 



" Of Hesperus and his daughters three. 

 Who sing about the golden tree ■," 

 and Proserpina's garden, and the Bower of Bliss 

 in Spenser's Fairie Queene. The very mention of 

 their name seems to embower one in leaves and 

 blossoms. 



It is a matter of some taste to arrange a bouquet 

 of flowers judiciously ; even in language, we have a 

 finer idea of colours, when such are placed together 

 as look well togetht^r in substance Do we read 

 of white, purple, red, and yellow flowers, they do 

 not present to us so exquisite a picture, as if we 

 read of yellow and purple, white and red. Their 

 arrangement has been happily touched upon by 

 some of our poets : 



" Th' Azon-s send 



Their jessamine ; her jessamine, remote 

 Calfraia : foreigners from many lands, 

 They form one social shade, as if convened 

 By magic summons of lb' Orphean lyre 



* See Tally's Narrative of a Residence in Tripoli. 

 t See Lalla Rookh, page 303. Sixth edition. 



