178 
THE FLORIST^ JOURNAL. 
industry of the country. As humble florists, it is not our business 
to enter into the governmental or the popular causes of that 
strange neglect which, notwithstanding all the wealth and intelli¬ 
gence of this country, is the fate—the public fate, we mean — of 
every thing calculated to refine the mind, soften the heart, and 
tend to root out those vices of coarse and vulgar character which 
are still too prevalent. But, in perfect accordance with our proper 
studies, we shall from time to time “ keep at them,” as the vulgar 
but expressive phrase has it ; and, while we devote our main 
attention to that art of which we are willing advocates, if we can 
obliquely aim a shaft in favour of any of the sister arts, we shall 
not let slip the opportunity. 
But we must advert to our immediate subject, which is to re¬ 
commend the arrangement of foreign plants in such a way as that 
they may afford at least some idea of the scenery of those lands of 
which they are native. Preparatory to this, it would be desirable 
to provide also a knowledge of the form of the surface and the 
nature of the soil where the plants are native ; and it might not 
be unadvisable to intersperse some of the accompaniments, such 
as models of a few of the animals which are most strikingly charac¬ 
teristic of the scenery. For the accomplishment of this, extensive 
space, though desirable, is not absolutely necessary ; because a 
limited scene, if, perfectly true in its characters, affords an easier 
and perhaps a more useful lesson than one of very ample dimen¬ 
sions, in which those peculiarities that more particularly express 
the locality, are lost in the extended mass of the whole. 
In the open air, arrangements of this description would be of 
course confined to climates not much warmer on the whole than 
that of the place where the collection was to be established : and if 
the native locality of the plants were very seasonal in respect of 
drought and humidity, they would either not thrive, or their 
characters would be altered in the variable climate of Britain. 
But even for out-door collections, if the places for them were 
judiciously chosen, the range is much greater than some would sup¬ 
pose ; for it includes the plants of the elevated parts of China and 
Japan, of the Illawarra district of Australia, of those slopes of the 
Mexican and Peruvian Andes which have considerable elevation, 
and are subject to frequent rains. Thus there is an ample field 
for geographical display in the garden, the shrubbery, and the 
arboretum, — though that which we should desire to see would be all 
