HORTICULTURAL SHOW. 53 



in Boston. In and about the city there are nurserymen enough 

 to make our horticultural shows superior to any in the country, 

 and there is a wealth of plants and fruits in the green-houses 

 and gardens of private citizens, which, if once systematically 

 drawn out, would crown the effort with success. To say nothing 

 of the large property which the Institute has already accumula- 

 ted, there are plenty of wealthy men pf taste who would be quite 

 as ready to contribute toward the accomplishment of this grand 

 object, as they have been to send clothing to the antipodes. 



The visitor to the show at Palace Garden will not fail to be 

 struck with the beauty and variety of colored leaf plants. Espe- 

 cially noticeable are the specimens shown by Mr. Isaac Buchanan, 

 the florist, and as this specialty of culture has sprung up almost 

 entirely Avithin five years, we presume our readers will be glad 

 to know something of the nature and history of the plants. 



Next to having a pleasing succession of fragrant or high-colored 

 flowers, it is the object of the gardener to fill his green-house 

 with a mass of foliage of such variety of tint and shape as to 

 make of themselves an attractive display. One of the fundamen- 

 tal principles of landscape gardening, is to make a pleasing 

 diversity in detail, subordinate to the production of a grand 

 whole ; and in fact, if once this diversity in the separate parts 

 were lost sight of, the result would be tame and uninteresting. 

 In forming his group of trees, therefore, the gardener of taste 

 places round-topped trees along with those of branching or poin- 

 ted tops, and thus in his apparent incongruous arrangement, he 

 achieves a pleasing as well as a striking group. The same rule 

 holds good in the glass-roofed garden as well as on the broad 

 estate ; and nothing more tame or uninteresting could be imag- 

 ined than a green-house in which rows of plants of equal height 

 and equal tint were multiplied ad nauseam. To the man whose 

 wealth makes it possible for him to procure the rarest plants or 

 trees of the tropics, the humble flowers which grow abundantly 

 near home seem of small account, and it therefore happens that 

 agents are sent at great cost, to Borneo, or other strange coun- 

 tries to procure the rarities their patrons need. As new countries 

 are opened by the extension of commerce, or otherwise, and their 

 rare vegetable productions are brought to the feet of Dives, a 

 new furor is created for certain plants, perhaps, whose only 

 great attraction is their cost of importation or hideous shape. 

 Occasionally, however, a real treasury is opened, and a real bene. 



