THE LADIES’ FLORAL CABINET. 
315 
that, could it but speak, it would give a very unamiable 
opinion of Japanese horticulture. 
The chrysanthemums give us such very artistic tints 
and so many forms that the most fastidious may find 
flowers to their fancy, either for house or garden. If one 
is gifted with large, deep window recesses, nothing is 
more charming or, as an added inducement, more fash¬ 
ionable, than to fill such spaces with a rustic box of these 
flowers ; or a large single pot may be placed on a stand. 
It has long been a regret that we could get no really 
artistic, ornamental flower-pot without a deficiency of 
drainage, the glaze preventing the smallest escape of 
water. But this difficulty is now obviated ; Haviland 
and those Greenpoint manufacturers of so-called Li¬ 
moges faience make beautifully artistic jars, into which 
you may slip an ordinary, commonplace flower-pot. It 
is upheld by a sort of inside rim, so that waste water 
drains into the outer vessel, from which it may be readily 
emptied. A dull blue jar, painted in a shadowy design 
of browns and dull reds, makes a South Kensington de¬ 
sign worthy of Miss Dora Wheeler, when filled with 
Golden Dragon or Hero of Magdala chrysanthemums. 
I must confess to a personal weakness for the Japan¬ 
ese varieties ; their fluffy, ragged masses are very attrac¬ 
tive, but many admire the regular, globe form of the 
Chinese, with their incurving petals, often showing two 
distinct colors. The pompons are hardly as showy as 
the larger sorts, though they are usually a mass of flow¬ 
ers. Golden Pheasant looks just like a yellow-plush 
button, and is certainly bright and attractive; but of all 
the pompons one of our old favorites, briefly named 
Bob, seems best. It is a rich Pompeian red, a very 
free bloomer and perfectly hardy. In a window-box it 
would be charming in company with George Glenny 
—a beautiful Chinese, of an exquisite pale sulphur tint. 
The Golden Dragon, mentioned above, is an immense 
Japanese flower of brightest gold ; Hero of Magdala is a 
rich red. After a careful study of two exhibitions, 1 it 
seems well-nigh impossible to declare which are the best 
sorts ; they are all lovely or eccentric in appearance, and, 
as one enthusiastic young woman was heard to declare, 
“just too perfectly aesthetic for anything.” This was at 
Philadelphia, where, in addition to a well-arranged and 
well-lighted hall—which, alas, we New Yorkers do not 
possess—the display was finer individually than at New 
York. We can never forget the gorgeous coup d'ceil 
presented on entering the hall; a blazing mass of reds 
and yellows—a complete gamut of these colors, toned 
down by snowy-white and soft mauve. Many odd seed¬ 
lings were shown; among them a red-rayed flower, 
“ Yum-Yum," that child of nature who blushes at her 
own loveliness, while the Lord High Executioner him¬ 
self is commemorated in a similar flower, Ko-Ko. By 
the way, the management of the Fifth Avenue “ Mika¬ 
do ” Company showed their appreciation of the popular 
craze by expending a considerable sum in these plants, 
at the Horticultural Society’s auction, for use in the 
garden scene of that opera. So “ The flowers that 
bloom in the spring ” was sung with the rather con¬ 
tradictory adornment of autumn’s latest blossoms. 
“ I’ve got a little list,” like Ko-Ko, of specially beau¬ 
tiful flowers, but if we give all those worthy of culture 
we must give a complete transcript of Messrs. Hallock 
& Thorpe’s catalogue. So we can only say that Glori- 
osum is a superb yellow, and so is Grandiflorum and 
Ben d’Or ; Robert Walcott is a superb orange red ; Bras 
Rouge, dark red; President Cleveland is a beautiful white, 
and so is Ceres ; Mrs. Mary Morgan, mauve-tinted white, 
and Jeanne d’Arc soft blush. Pompons and marguerites 
are endless in variety, and we should say of each plant 
“ this is most beautiful ” if we did not find that its neigh¬ 
bor was equally worthy of praise. E. L. Taplin. 
RURAL /ESTHETICS. 
A Paper read before the Farmers' Club of the American Institute, New York, November 24, by C. L. Allen, Ed. Floral Cabinet. 
T HE aesthetic is, properly speaking, the science of the 
beautiful, either in art, literature or nature. It 
strictly signifies that which relates to sensible impressions. 
It is the soul of the beautiful—that influence which it 
exerts, and which can neither be seen nor described. Its 
influence is relative, depending upon the mind and the 
object with which it comes in contact. No two persons 
receive the same impression from any given object, sim¬ 
ply because of the different degrees or qualities of the 
mind upon which it acts. It is an established fact that 
men see and find what they look for; if it is the beautiful 
in nature they will not only find it, but they will receive 
impressions that would never be made on the minds of 
those deficient in ideality or those who have no knowl¬ 
edge of the development of the beautiful. The botanist 
or entomologist goes into ecstasies over the beauties seen 
on the mountain’s side, in the objects he secures for obser¬ 
vation and study. The man of toil finds the same moun¬ 
tain hard to climb. The one uses his muscles in the 
development of taste and for the gratification of all tha 
is noble, beautiful and pure in his aspirations ; the other 
merely for the sustenance of animal life. In the one the 
body is the agent of the mind, and is a freeman; in the 
other the mind works alone for the body, and is a slave. 
It is the object that industry has that makes it beautiful 
or servile. 
Rural aesthetics may be defined rural tastes in distinc¬ 
tion from rural pursuits. It is that taste which views a 
plant or flower from the inner, the creative side, instead 
of the outer or effective side. The beautiful in the plant, 
like the beautiful in human character, consists in what it 
is and not in its external appearance or grandeur. Flow¬ 
ers, like friendships, are rarely valued for their intrinsic 
worth, or cultivated with that tender care their excellence 
deserves. The business world inventories a man’s houses, 
lands, bonds, merchandise and stocks. Man’s true inven¬ 
tory consists in what he is, not in what he has. It is 
manhood that makes a man! It is brains, not bullion 
