178 THE PIvANT WORI.D 



plain and wooded hill, of sylvan dales and laughing streams, know the 

 flowers as they know the faces of their dearest friends. Then will the 

 daintiest plants and blossoms which languish and refuse to be comforted 

 amid alien surroundings be enjoyed to the utmost in their native haunts, 

 while their sturdier brethren will be sought for with all the more eager- 

 ness for home decoration. 



The ever-graceful daisy ranks high among these latter flowers, and so 

 sturdy is it that the farmer would rise up and call him blessed who could 

 eradicate it from his fields, while the army of those who love the star-like 

 beauty of its golden-hearted, silver-rayed blossoms may rest content in 

 the knowledge of its indestructible vigor. 



And what more dainty than the violet of wayside and meadow, or 

 more pregnant with the poetry of spring and the charm of the annual 

 resurrection which few of us are yet so self-absorbed, or so case-hardened, 

 by even the driving life of the greater cities, as to be totally oblivious to. 



There are many others as beautiful as they are sturdy ; but all this is 

 merely suggestive, and these are mentioned simply because they are so 

 well known and are so typical of such of the wild dwellers of wood and 

 plain as can best withstand the demand for home decoration and the 

 almost instinctive and much-cultivated desire to possess. 



Home decoration is included in the lessons of the school-room ; and the 

 trend of thought on floral lines might well be directed toward the hybrids 

 to the lasting benefit of their wild sisters. Man-made to a degree, and 

 in many instances deprived of the power of reproducing their kind, a 

 power which brings their wilder sisterhood thus much nearer their Creator, 

 the creations of the horticulturist's art are in far nearer keeping with the 

 artificial surroundings of the ball-room, or the often but little less hybrid 

 conditions of many city homes, than the wild flowers could possibly be. 



Older pupils might be taught the utter incongruity of associating the 

 dying glories of the woodlands' most delicate plants with the budding 

 hopes and aspirations which should prevail in every feature of a wedding 

 celebration. And this is no imaginary danger to the wild flowers, but, 

 on the contrary, is a recent and rapidly-growing menace ; wild plants, 

 and the daintiest of their kind, having been a marked, and in some in- 

 stances an exclusive, feature of the decorations at several recent wed- 

 dings. 



Of the pleasures of the cultivation of flowers as against the delights 

 of merely picking them, only to watch their more or less rapid decay, 

 there is but little to be suggested to the teachers, because already they 

 are doing all in their power, so far as the limited facilities of class- 

 rooms will permit, to cultivate a taste for living plants, while their en- 

 deavors in that direction have led to the suggestion of roof gardens or 

 possibly a conservatory as additions to modern school buildings, to relieve 



