26 
THE FLORIST’S JOURNAL. 
of ornamental shrubs which have been introduced into Britain, and 
the difference of their sizes, and habits of growth, render this 
branch of the art a matter of minor importance with us. 
In endeavouring to obtain new beauties, whether of form or of 
colour, there is one source of mistake, against which the cultivator 
must be on his guard. Novelty, as long as it continues to be so, 
has certain charms which are apt to be mistaken for those of beauty, 
and a variety of flower, inferior to many already obtained, is often 
prized merely because it is new, and consequently rare. In 
principle this is bad taste ; and in practice it has the pernicious 
effect of detracting from, and in so far destroying the perception of 
real beauty,—a perception which the floriculturist ought to possess 
in the very highest degree. 
It is chiefly, however, to the beauty of colour that the skill of 
the flower-cultivator should be directed ; because it is this that 
strikes first and most forcibly and deeply the eye of every observer. 
New colours, or superior colours, or blendings of colour, in the 
single flower, are chiefly to be obtained by cross impregnation, a 
subject to which justice cannot be done in a casual observation. 
We shall, therefore, reserve it also for a future occasion, and pro¬ 
ceed to the main subject of our present paper—the effect of con¬ 
trasts of colour ; not in a single flower, but in several flowers when 
they are grouped together. 
Every one who has been in the habit of seeing and admiring 
collections of flowers, on stages, in beds, in borders, in any grow¬ 
ing situations whatsoever, or even in a flower vase or a nosegay, 
must have noticed that, of two collections of the very same species 
of flow'ers, each flower in equal perfection, the tout ensemble of 
the one shall have been far more pleasing to the eye than that of 
the other ; and that, in consequence of some principle of arrange¬ 
ment, which in all probability the arranger could not explain, the 
individual flowers of the one group appeared much brighter in 
their colours than those of the other ; nor could their identity be 
believed, until a bloom of each was taken, and laid side by side 
apart from both collections. 
Any one who chooses may verify this by a nosegay of flowers 
consisting of many varieties of colour in the petals, and many 
shades of green in the leaves ; for, if the same nosegay is, taken 
apart and made up again in many different ways, it shall have a 
different degree of beauty in each, and it can often be improved 
