614 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



the vicinity of London, almost every house has its garden belonging' to it, 

 and almost always filled with flowers. Flowering plants are also much 

 more extensively used for the decoration of rooms, and especially for win- 

 dows ; a system I hope to see more extensively adopted in New York; for 

 window gardening adds a charm even to the abode of the wealthy, and 

 also the poor have the delight of tending a few choice plants, and of 

 becoming acquainted with their habits and flowers. Horticultural socie- 

 ties have also done much for the encouragement of the cultivation of 

 flowers, and particularly among the humbler classes, with an evident 

 increase of amenity within and around the dwellings, as well as an unques- 

 tionable tendency to refinement of habits and feelings. In almost all 

 European cities there were floral markets specially devoted to the sale of 

 plants and cut flowers. Who has not heard of the Marchee aux fleurs, or 

 flower markets of Paris, or of Covent Garden in London ? These markets 

 have become world renowned, solely from their being the great depots for 

 flowers, whether grown in pots or cut for bouquets and for the table. 



But let us turn for an instant to artificial flowers. It may be said, what 

 have they to do with the present subject? I answer, very much. We are 

 so constituted that we will have flowers at all times and seasons if possi- 

 ble; for what greater adornment for the person? How would a lady's hat 

 or bonnet look without them? but as we know natural flowers would fade 

 too soon for this purpose, art has imitated nature, and there is not a new 

 flower, or a new shade of color introduced by the florist, but the artist in 

 flowers is ready to imitate it; and to give you some idea of the extent to 

 which they are used, I have only to mention that France annually exports 

 over $200,000, over and above what is consumed in the country itself. 

 Then again, the colors of flowers. What more varied or beautifully brilliant? 

 Art has never attained to them, but must ever be an imitator. The 

 painter attempts to portray their brilliancy on the canvas ; but how feeble 

 the attempt. Let any one take the most beautiful painting of flowers by 

 a Van Huysen, or a Cuyp, and let him compare the flower on the canvas 

 with the natural one, and he will at once perceive how great a difierence 

 there is. Indeed, in many instances we have no means of describing a 

 color except by naming the plant. For instance, the Rose, Lilac, Peach, 

 Lavender, Violet, and many others. The manufacturer of silks for dresses 

 or for ribbons, studies the colors of flowers, in order to imitate them as 

 near as possible in his manufactures, so that no lady can adorn herself in 

 the most costly dress or the most lovely ribbon, but its coloring is derived 

 or imitated from the humble and lovely flowers. 



In the year 1636 a flower mania prevailed in Holland, chiefly in reference 

 to the Tulip, in which people speculated as in stocks and railway shares in 

 our da}'. At that time a single Tulip called the Semper Augustus, sold for 

 13,000 florins, about, I believe, $6,000 of our money, the ownership of a 

 Tulip being often divided into shares. 



Artificial moans have been employed for the produce and rearing of 

 flowers far more generally than for the cultivation of fruits and vegetables. 

 Those who can only aff"ord a small green-house, almost always devote it to 

 flowers; and those who cannot attain this have often favored plants under 

 a frame or in a window of a room. I need scarcely mention what the 



