32 HORTICULTURE. 



formal and decided protest against the style of decorations called 

 after her name, and which had, for several years past, made the 

 otherwise brilliant Autumnal Horticultural Shows in our quar- 

 ter of the globe so disagreeable an offering to her. " To call the 

 monstrous formations, which, under the name of temples, stars, tri- 

 pods, and obelisks — great bizarre masses of flowers plastered on 

 wooden frames — to call these after her name, ' Floral designs,' was," 

 she said, "even more than the patience of a goddess could bear." 

 If those who make them are sincerely her devoted admirers, as they 

 profess to be, she begged us to say to them, that, unless they had 

 designs upon her flow of youth and spirits, that had- hitherto been 

 eternal, she trusted they would hereafter desist. 



We hereupon ventured to offer some apolo^ for the offending 

 parties,. by saying they were mostly the work of the "bone and 

 sinew'' of the gardening profession, men with blunt fingers but 

 earnest souls, who worked for days upon what they fancied was a 

 worthy offering to be laid upon her altars. She smiled, and said 

 the intention was accepted, but not its results, and hinted somethiiBg- 

 about the same labor being performed under the dii-^ction of the 

 more tasteful eye' of ladies, who should invent and arrange, while 

 the fingers of honest toil wrought the ruder outline only. 



Flora then hinted to us, how much more beautiful flowers were 

 when arranged; in, the simplest forms, and said, when combined 

 or moulded into shapes or devices, nothing more elaborate or arti- 

 ficial than a vase-form is really pleasing. Baskets, moss-covered 

 and flower-woven, she said, were thought elegant enough for Para- 

 dise itself. " Iliere are not only baskets," continued she, " that are beau- 

 tiful lying down, and showing inside a rich mosaic, oftflowers — each 

 basket, large or small, devoted perhaps, to some one choice flower 

 in its many varieties ; but baskets on the tops of mossy pedestals, 

 bearing tasteful emblems interwoven on their sides ; and baskets 

 hanging from ceilings, or high festooned arches — in which case 

 they display in the most graceful and becoming manner, all 

 manner of drooping and twining plants,, the latter stealing out 

 of the nest or body of the basket, and waving to and fro in the air 

 they perfume." " Then there is the garland," continued our fair 

 guest; "it is quite amazing, that since the days of those clever and, 



