The Extrinsic and Intrinsic Views of Nature 
2 7 
care for the plant from the time it sprouts 
until it dies: it is a companion. The 
American snips off its head and puts it in 
his buttonhole : it is an ornament. I 
have sometimes wondered whether the 
average flower-buyer knows that flowers 
grow on plants. Flowers are fleeting. 
All of us have known people who 
derive more satisfaction from a poor plant 
that never blooms than others do from 
a bunch of American Beauty roses at five 
dollars. There is individuality — I had 
almost said personality — in a growing, 
living plant, but there is little of it about 
a detached flower. And it does not mat- 
ter so much if the plant is poor and 
weakly and scrawny. Do we not love 
poor and crippled and crooked people ? 
A plant in the room on wash-day is 
worth more than a hunch of flowers on 
Sunday. 
But the American taste is rapidly 
changing. Each year the florist’s trade 
sees a proportionately greater demand for 
plants. The same change is seen in the 
making of parks and home grounds. 
More and more the gross carpet-beds are 
relegated to those parts of the grounds 
which are devoted to curiosities or they 
are omitted altogether, and in their stead 
are restful sward and flowing verdure. 
Flowers are not to be despised, but they 
are accessories. 
This habit of looking first at what we 
call the beauty of a thing is closely asso- 
ciated with the old conceit that every- 
thing is made to please man : man is only 
demanding his own. It is true that 
FIG. 4 . SKIN HALF-WAY OFF. 
FIG. 5* CHRYSALID CASTING OFF DISCARDED SKIN. 
By L. W. Brownell. 
FIG. 6 . PERFECT CHRYSALID. 
