G 
TARE AUSTRALIAN GARDENER. 
as artificial, but he is even accused of 
spoiling every flower he touches. Fashion 
has been setting yery strongly towards 
gardening, and yet the number of florists 
has by no means increased in the same 
ratio, the newer gardeners either grow 
things for their rarity or associations, 
alpines and the like, or else consider 
flowers as a means of getting certain color 
effects in their gardens rather than the 
garden as a means of growing flowers. But 
the florist’s day is coming again; among 
the new recruits must be a certain pro- 
portion who will be drawn to the love and 
study of the flower itself, and it is out of 
this intimate affection that the true florist 
is begotten. The justification of the 
florist is that he has made himself so 
wholly acquainted with his flower that he 
sees its inherent possibilities and lays 
down rules and standards which are cal- 
culated to bring out to the fullest its na- 
tural capacities. The quaint irregularity, 
the careless grace of many a garden Tulip 
is full of charm and at first sight takes the 
eye more than the severe outline of the 
florist’s type, but these are chance effects 
of the picturesque order, and if pursued do 
not lend themselves to the improvement of 
the race. The florist’s work has consisted 
in taking certain qualities latent or dimly 
seen in the wild flower, such as symmetry, 
texture of petal, or marking, and raising 
these to the highest pitch of excellence. ° 
The Tulip fancier will tolerate no pointed 
petals because they interfere with the 
cupped shape, which is the only one com- 
patible with a full display of the mark- 
ings; he must have ai clean white bas3 to 
the cup because he thus gets a surpassing 
effect of contrast in his. perfect, flower. 
The rigidity of the florist in excluding 
backslidings from his ideal, fallings away 
to the right hand or the left, is because 
he realises that “the good is ever enemy 
to the best,” the ideal may be unattain- 
able, but he will make no terms with any- 
thing that is not on the road to the final 
- goal. Of course, there are those who 
deny the whole idea of improvement, who 
prefer the clear frail beauty of the dog- 
rose in the hedge to the finest Marechal 
Niel that was ever staged; all the florist 
can answer is that if you begin by liking 
the wild Rose and growing it, you are 
pretty sure to pass onwards to the florist 
forms. The mind of the individual some- 
how follows the development of the race, 
and florist’s flowers, with their apparently 
artificial rules and standards, are simply 
the outcome of the work of many genera- 
tions of men and women who have loved 
them and thought over them. For these 
are flowers with a history, with a tradi- 
tion of the grand stylé behind them; the 
Tulip, for instance, was already created, 
with all its properties and qualities, before 
it came to Europe from the East in the 
fifteenth century. In the hands of the 
Dutch and Flemish gardeners of the seven- 
teenth and eighteenth centuries it moved 
steadily onwards, the conception we hold 
to-day getting more clearly defined with 
each generation, until the English growers 
of the nineteenth century formulated the 
requirements of the ideal flower, to which 
the actual has hardly yet reached. A few 
of the old Continental varieties are even 
yet hardly outclassed, but on the whole 
the Dutch growers remain where they 
were a century ago, the few novelties 
they have raised fail to satisfy the severer 
standard of the English fancy, even though 
that standard was originally laid down 
with some clearness in Holland. 
Thus the “properties” of a florist’s 
flower are by no means arbitrary and arti- 
ficial, or conventions pure and simple ; 
they represent the accumulated experience 
of generations, the opinions that have sur- 
vived and: proved permanent after in- 
numerable trials and errors in all direc- 
tions. It is not to be expected that even 
the perfected flower will appeal to the 
casual spectator all at once; severer beau- 
ties which depend upon form and style 
demand some training and study upon the 
part of the observer, if he is to dis- 
criminste and do more than merely enjoy 
the obvious. The visitor to a picture 
gallery amprecia tes in proportion: as he 
knows; in his early days he is likely to 
be taken by the pictured anecdote, by the 
commonplace in some form or anotlier; 
and the florist’s is an art that has its kin- 
ship to the painter's. 
But, as we said, a show is not the best 
place to enjoy the beauty even of a fancy 
Tulip, it should be seen on the bed with 
the morning sunshine through its petals— 
all gold and fire—opening wide to drink 
the “heavenly vintage.” But the show 
is a neccssity ; without the stress of com- 
petition the flower moves but slowly along 
the path of improvement, and there is 
nothing like the stern ordeal of the green 
boards to create that divine discontent 
with what one has already accomplished, 
which in the end maketh all things new. 
Florists’ flowers are often “miffy” and 
uncertain, “bad doers” in garden slang, 
not because the florist likes them so, but 
because they possess qualities he cannot 
for the time being attain in the more 
vigorous varieties. Sooner or later a new 
break comes with the desired grace and 
strength and this is the ordinary gar- 
dener's opportunity: The mere garden 
lover is contemptuous of the florist, but 
he has in the end his profit out of him 
by’ taking his best, forgetful cf and even 
ungrateful for the slow ‘steps that have led 
to the glorious result. So the Royal Hor- 
ticultural Society is acting wisely in ex- 
tending its hospitality to “these specialist 
shows. They may seem to appeal to but 
few, but they are in a way one of the 
creative factors in horticulture, and will 
eventually endow our gardens with still 
rarer beauties. | 
—Suturday Review. 
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: Pere Ocr, | 1, 1903 
‘DAFFODILIA. 
Which are the fairest flowers in the 
world? An unprofitable, an unanswerable 
question, surely, if there eveir was one. 
Who is to ascend the seat of Judgment and 
decide the matter for us? Shall we give 
ourselves into the hand of the naturalist, 
or the artist, or the poet, or the lover? 
Innumerable are the fancies that will cross 
one another and confound us beyond all 
hopa of settlement, the moment we put to 
ourselves the problem. If we are wise, we 
shall cease vain comparisons, and go down 
on our knees, like Linnzus before the gorse, 
merely to thank God for all these marvel- 
lous works of His hand. The spring, the 
summer, the autumn, the winter come and 
go, each bringing us some timely blossom 
or berry, which, as we hold it in our hand 
and meditate on its exquisiteness, seems in- 
comparable. “Omnia tempus habent,’ 
cries the preacher contemplating the vicissi- 
tudes and order of the world, “cuncta fecit 
bona in tempore suc’—‘to everything 
ee is a season,” “He hath made every- 
thizz beautiful in his tne,” and there is 
the esac of the matter. 
But at the moment we are writing it is 
springtime, and in spring it goes hard in- 
deed to deny supremacy to the Daffodil, the 
flower beloved of poets cut of memory, that 
moved Herrick to his tenderest mood, 
whose “golden hosts” set Wordsworth’s 
heart dancing with glee—the Daffodils, of 
which Shakespeare tells us in perhaps the 
loveliest flower passage of all English lite- 
rature: 
“That come before the swallow dares, and 
take 
The winds of March with beauty.” 
The winter rigors have spent themselves, 
the birds have chosen their mates and are 
a-building, the very winds, even when they 
blow boisterously, have that ring of life 
and hope in them so different from the 
rage and sobbing gales of autumn ; yes but 
the boughs are still bare, the earth is still 
barren, ‘when. these harbingers of Flora’s 
pageant, “beneath the trees,” or in the 
meadows, 
“Continuous as the stars that shine 
And twinkle on the milky way,” 
spring up to gladden us. These homely 
blossoms, were they indeed not one half as 
bright and dainty as they are, would per- 
force engage our affections, compel our 
praises, out of sheer gratitude. Lent lilies 
our forefathers called them, and appro- 
priately enough; yet not assuredly as peni- 
tential flowers or for any touch of gloom 
about them, but rather as “annunciation” 
lilies, gay heralds of Easter, restorative 
blossoms instinct with the promise of resur- 
rection, of renewed life and happiness, for 
nature and humanity. Let Wordsworth 
again interpret for us— 
“A poet could not but be g gay 
In such a jocund company” 
he cries. There are flowers which are for 
pensiveness and tears, for adieux and 
memory ; but the Daffodil comes clad in 
the sun’s own livery, bidding us lift ee our 
heads and rejoice. 
