216 



SELECTION. 



Chap. XX. 



the melon ; and as the Eomans, who were such gourmands are 

 silent on this fruit, he infers that the melon has been Greatly 

 ameliorated since the classical period. 



Coming to later times, Buffon, 82 on comparing the flowers, 

 fruit, and vegetables which were 



then cultivated 



some 



excellent drawings made a hundred and fifty years previously 

 was struck with surprise at the great improvement which had 



been effected 



and 



•ks that these ancient flowers and 

 getables would now be rejected, not only by a florist but by 



the time of Buffon the work of 



a village gardener. Since 



improvement has steadily and rapidly gone on. Every florist 



who compai 



present flowers with those figured in books 



published not long since, is astonished at the change. A 

 known amateur, 83 in speaking of the varieties of Pelargc 

 raised by Mr. Garth only twenty-two 



year 



before, remarks 



"it was said ; and 

 " will be looked 



they excited : surely we had attained perfect 



of the flowers of 



da^ 



■I 



at. But none the less is the debt of gratitude 

 which we owe to those who saw what was to be done, and did 



" it. 



?? 



Mr. Paul, the well-kn o w n horticulturist, in writing of 



me flower, 84 says he remembers when young being delighted 



the portraits in Sweet 



but what are they in point 



of beauty compared with the Pelargoniums of this day 



H 



" again nature did not advance by leaps ; the improvement 



(( 



was 



5 



a dual, and, if 



had 



glected those very 



" advances, we must have foregone the present grand 

 How well this practical horticulturist appreciates and i 



r rad 



the gradual and accumulative force of 



in a like manner 



selection ! The Dahlia 

 has advanced in beauty in a like manner ; the line of improve- 

 ment being guided by fashion, and by the successive modifica- 



florist 



hich the flower slowly under 

 ge has been noticed in many 



after describing the leadin 

 grown in 1813, adds 



A steady and gradual 



flowers 



old 



86 



fc> 



of the Pink which 



be scarcely 



6 



border-flowers 



pinks of those days would 



The impr 



of 



82 The passage is given 'Bull. Soc. 

 d'Acclimat,,' 1858, p. 11. 



83 ' Journal of Horticulture,' 1862, p. 



394. 



84 ' Gardener's Chronicle/ 1857, p. 85. 



85 See Mr. Wildman's address to the 

 Floricult. Soc, iu 'Gardener's Chro- 

 nicle,' 1843, p. 86. 



86 'Journal of Horticulture,' Oct. 

 24th, 1865, p. 239. 







I 



