NOVELTY AND VARIETY 253 



eye. There can be no excuse wliatever for dwarfing 

 this, as has lately been done. There are abready 

 plenty of good flowering plants under a foot high, and 

 the little dwarf white monstrosity, now being followed 

 by coloured ones of the- same habit, seems to me 

 worthy of nothing but condemnation. It would be 

 as right and sensible to dwarf a Hollyhock into a 

 podgy mass a foot high, or a Pentstemon, or a Fox- 

 gloTe. Happily these have as yet escaped dwarfing, 

 though I regret to see that a deformity that not un- 

 frequently appears among garden Foxgloves, looking 

 like a bell-shaped flower topping a stunted spike, 

 appears to have been " fixed," and is being offered as 

 a " novelty." Here is one of the clearest examples of 

 a new development which is a distinct debasement of 

 a naturally beautiful form, but which is nevertheless 

 being pushed forward in trade : it has no merit what- 

 ever in itself, and is only likely to sell because it is 

 new and curious. 



And/-£ill this parade of distortion and deformity 

 comes about from the grower losing sight of beauty as 

 the first consideration, or from his not having the 

 knowledge that would enable him to determine what 

 are the points of character in various plants most 

 deserving of development, and in not knowing when 

 or where to stop. Abnormal size, whether greatly 

 above or much below the average, appeals to the vulgar 

 and uneducated eye, and will always command its 

 a^ttention and Avouderment. But then the production 



