292 E.EI'ORM IN THE CONSEEVATORY. 



Fia. 128. 



your modern cultivator lias contrived almost to annihi- 

 late leaf beauty. Nature is strongly vigorous in the 

 production of leaves,, and in the widest spread of Heath over 

 a mountain^ in the densest mass of Bluebells in a wood^ or 

 in any natural display of bloom whatever^ you find the 

 mass toned down by pointed leaves^ and in the case of the 

 spreading Heather by fringe of Polypody and cushion of 

 moist mountain moss^ if you go near to it and examine it. 



Everywhere Na- 

 ture sets her 

 flowers in clouds of 

 refreshing green^ 

 and therefore those 

 who merely culti- 

 vate dense flower- 

 ing things^ and do 

 not take care to 

 relieve them with 

 others possessed 

 of sweet grace and 

 verdure, outrage 

 nature, and offer 

 nothing worthy 

 of admiration to 

 the educated or 

 tasteful eye. To 

 have all the 

 flowers dished up 

 without a bit of 

 green, is like eat- 

 ing your dinner in the form of a pill — a great saving of 

 time no doubt, but still utterly destructive of the joys of 

 the table. 



A not unimportant merit of the subjects I so strongly 

 recommend for general culture is the great ease with which 

 they are cultivated ; no neat staking, delicate attentions, 

 or repeated pottings, being required. They may be 

 grown with nearly equal facility in pots or tubs or planted 

 out. The continental plan of divesting the interior of the 



Maranta micans. 



