The perfumes and tastes had been classified according to their affinity to certain virtues and ideas and to the great deeds and scenes which best represented them. The island was one vast flower-garden at all seasons of the year, arranged not alone to please the eye, but to bring by the suggestion of their perfumes the noblest virtues and deeds constantly into the mind. For example, wherever a child or youth was being trained, the flowers possessing certain well-known scents which were closely connected with the finest qualities and ideas of the race shone profusely yet with striking art. The art of the gardening family did not consist merely in arrangement of the landscape and the varied coloration of it. The scent of every flower had to be taken into consideration and the faint flavour or taste the seed or fruit might produce in the air when sent adrift or bruised. The problem of no science or art was so complicated as that of gardening in this island, it had to take account of so many senses, seasons, and conditions of growth. They were never done with creating and selecting new variations of flowers and plants, and colour, scent, and taste in the vegetable world were as adaptable in their hands as tones in the hands of their musical composers. Their task was made comparatively easy by the great development of methods and appliances for rapid growth and decay. They had not only complete command of the weather and clouds and sunshine; but they could bring up and perfect flowers in a few nights over vast areas by the use of their streams and watering platforms and of artificial light. When the Limanorans slept, wonders were being accomplished in colouring the landscape; for first some of their great rivers would pour refreshing rain all over the plains; and then the electric glow, brought close over the plants, would develop their bloom-producing capacity. As careful were the gardeners that no withering or dead vegetable matter should ever taint the air of the island; the moment one set of blossoms had perfected and shown traces of decay, an electric pruner ran in a few minutes over the whole area, and not merely cut them off, but burnt them to dust that fell on the roots to stimulate the new growth of the plants. As soon as the plants had passed their bloom-productive point, an electric life-destroyer ploughed lightly through the soil in all directions; and by the morning what had been profusely flower-coloured the day before was brown earth, ready for the new plant-growth of next day. The slow-growing perennials and bushes and trees occupied separate and fixed quarters at a distance from the residences and the great centres of intercourse, and all rampant vegetation and rotting boughs and leaves were daily turned into good soil by the electric weed-destroyer. No decay was ever allowed to approach the senses. Their knowledge of the secrets of the soil made them independent of rotting or offensive manures.