yellow, a surprise of pell-mell in flower, the most wonderful of Japan.
For a thousand years the chrysanthemum was admired as a retired beauty by the garden fences, and under a simple methods of culture; but it became the flower of rich personages to a great measure under the Tokugawa feudal regime; and lately the culture of kiku, or chrysanthemum, is the greatest luxury. It would surprise you to know how much Counts Okuma and Sakai, these two best-known chrysanthemum raisers in Japan, have to spend yearly. It seems to me that such is a degeneration; still you cannot but appreciate and admire our advance in horticulture. When the chrysanthemum used to be called, that is of course, long ago, “Kukuri Bana,” or Binding Flower, from the reason that the flowers tie or gather themselves at the top, and have the appearance of a bouquet, they were
supposed to be even a sort of wild grass, perfectly unknown to a flower-lover. The honour of the creation of the modem wonder of chrysanthemum goes to a somewhat bigoted florist, to a somewhat frenzied horticulturist, to whom
