192 
THE FLORISTS JOURNAL. 
Then there is absolute knowledge, and very useful knowledge, accompany¬ 
ing this attention to flowers; and it descends to much humbler classes of 
society than those who have not reflected on the subject are aware of. Most 
people, except a few of the outcasts of society, are now capable of reading; 
and books containing accurate and useful information are within the reach of 
all, and want only a proper stimulus to cause them to be read. Now, a very 
limited collection of plants may have very great effects in this way. We love 
and admire the plant, and the result of this is a desire to know everything 
about it,—as, whence it comes, what it is good for, and so on for a long suc¬ 
cession. 
But if a man is properly embued with a love of a few flowers, he naturally 
wishes to have more; and extensive collections are now so numerous, and so 
generally distributed over the country, that there is little or no difficulty in 
getting this wish gratified. But those extensive collections include the 
flowers of almost every region under the canopy of heaven ; and the desire of 
knowing the flowers naturally leads to that of knowing every particular 
respecting the countries in which they are produced. Thus, he who examines 
in the right spirit a collection of those beauties of creation, is by them put in 
train for acquiring the most extensive and the most useful knowledge. He is 
told, for instance, that a certain plant, which strongly attracts his attention, is 
a native of Brazil, of Southern India, or of any other country, as it may be. 
This sends him to his books; and as he can easily obtain an account of the 
country which he wishes to know, he acquires a knowledge of it, not as a task, 
but a part of the pleasure which he derives from the love of flowers. Nor 
must it be supposed that his knowledge will confine itself to the habitat of the 
particular flower, or to the circumstances under which it grows ; for if the 
love of the plant is strong enough, it will carry him in desire to its native 
country ; and when once there the desire will extend to every thing that can 
be known about it: to the people, whence they came, what they are like, and 
how they are fed, clothed, lodged, and occupied ; to the country itself, whether 
}t is mountainous or flat, whether bare or wooded, whether parched with 
drought or abounding in streams; to the seasons, whether they consist of 
four gradually blending with each other on their confines, as with us,—or 
whether drought and moisture, or cold and heat, alternate violently with each 
other, as is the case in the extremes of climate; and to the mineral and 
surface productions of the earth, in so far as the one and the other may be 
useful to man. 
This is the natural and very delightful result to which the love of plants 
tends ; and it has been rendered much more certain by the improvements of 
modern times, by the introduction of a great variety of new plants, and by the 
establishment of something like a natural system. In former times, when 
cultivated flowers were few, and their native habitats but ill understood, the 
love of plants pointed to no such result as this. The florist was then a mere 
artist, who had no farther object than making a better article out of the same 
materials as his neighbours used; but now it is scarcely possible to become a 
florist without becoming a philosopher, or to continue long in the practice of 
the art, even as an amusement, without acquiring a great deal of general 
knowledge. 
