This section is from the book "The Gardener's Monthly And Horticulturist V18", by Thomas Meehan. See also: Four-Season Harvest: Organic Vegetables from Your Home Garden All Year Long.
The correspondents of the different papers, writing from the Centennial Exhibition, ought to find enough of facts to write about without serving up fiction as truth. We have seen in leading English papers some astounding narratives - all news to us at home. In the horticultural line the following is one of these specimens. It is strange that a man cannot see when he is hoaxed. It all comes from people writing of what they hear, instead of working up what they actually see.
"We have also recently learned that in some towns of the State, Philadelphia for example, the number of bouquets carried by a lady at a ball is considered to be indicative of the number of her actual admirers of the other sex. A lady without a bouquet confesses herself without an admirer sufficiently interested in her to have given her even a simple flower. On the other hand, if a lady has several admirers and each has sent her a bouquet, she appears with the whole number. No donor is more favored than another. This may give rise to a sense of equality, and of levelling of the claims of the admirers, but it is, to say the least, inconvenient to the lady and her partners. We have heard of a lady who appeared at a ball with ten huge bunches of flowers, some of which she had to trust to her partner, while she carried the remainder herself. We are told that " the whole of them would have filled a wheelbarrow, and the effect was awkward in the extreme." This is easily to be believed.
"The carrying of the bouquets is like the bearing by the Indian brave of the scalps of those he has killed - a token of victory. It is a fashion that we think is hardly likely to be imported from America by our belles who visit the exhibition."
 
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