248 WOOD AND GARDEN 



symmetry that can be easily estimated, thickness of 

 petal that can be felt, and such qualities of colour as 

 appeal most strongly to the uneducated eye ; so that 

 a flower may possess features or qualities that endow 

 it with the highest beauty, but that exclude it, because 

 the hard and narrow limits of the show-laws provide 

 no means of dealing with it. It is, therefore, thrown 

 out, not because they have any fault to find with it, 

 but because it does not concern them ; and the ordinary 

 gardener, to whose practice it might be of the highest 

 value, accepting the verdict of the show-judge as an 

 infalhble guide, also treats it with contempt and 

 neglect. 



Now, all this would not so much matter if it 

 did not delude those whose taste is not sufficiently 

 educated to enable them to form an opinion of their 

 own in accordance with the best and truest standards 

 of beauty ; for I venture to repeat that what we have to 

 look for for the benefit of our gardens, and for our own 

 bettering and increase of happiness in those gardens, 

 are things that are beautiful, rather than things that 

 are round, or straight, or thick, still less than for those 

 that are new, or curious, or astonishing. For all these 

 false gods are among us, and many are they who are 

 willing to worship. 



