STATE HORTICULTUKAL SOCIETY. 139 



wealth and beauty the key with which to unlock the "great temple 

 of nature." 



We are apt to forget that the great foundation of floral land- 

 scape has been laid in nature by a Divine hand, and the mountains, 

 rocks, valleys and deep gorges only tend to contrast, and add beauty 

 to the plains and landscape. 



Picture to yourself, a barren earth, no carpet of green, no beau- 

 tiful landscape, no blooming valleys, no buds, no blossoms of beauti- 

 ful flowers, no fertile plains, no rocks, mountains or trees, but the 

 earth, as if a huge roller had passed over it, crushing all to one dead 

 level, and flayed by burning? winds, a desert entirely naked, where a 

 traveler never drew his breath beneath a friendly shade, where noth- 

 ing reminds him of a teeming nature, a boundless waste. 



Infinitely better then is the arrangement of earth, the Creator 

 gave us our magnificent scenery, our mountains, our rocks, oar plains 

 and valleys, enameled with trees, shrubs and flowers, all exactly 

 suited to the circumstances in which they are placed, and perfectly 

 adapted to the use for which they are designed ; and as we see the 

 unsurpassed harmony and beauty of the planetary system, no less 

 beautiful are the works of God in this world; and all created things 

 bear the impress of wise design. 



Our beautiful trees, shrubs, and flowers grew spontaneously on 

 the mountains, plains, and in the valleys of the different countries, 

 and are as old as the creation ; and, in the centuries past, these 

 varied, beautiful productions have been gathered from their distant 

 homes and brought together and formed vast collections. A Hum- 

 boldt must scale the Andes to bring their mosses for comparison with 

 those of the Polar regions. An Arnold must explore the forests of 

 Java to find the magnificent Queen of Flowers, and it has been 

 ascertained that no fertile soil is destitute of verdure, even the floor 

 of the ocean is clothed in green. 



The love for horticulture, landscape gardening, and the cultiva- 

 tion of flowers, have been, and are, a prominent passion, from an age 

 dating seven hundred years or more before the Christian era, and, 

 from the earliest dawn of national refinement, gardening was a 

 practiced art, and has been the especial recreation of many men of 

 genius. 



It is presumed that the human mind is the most illustrious and 

 important mechanism, eminating from the Divine hand; of the truth 

 of this presumption we do not know, however this may be, climate, 

 education and circumstances make us strangely different in our valu- 

 ation of the beautiful, as well as the useful. 



The ardent lover of mathematics and the exact sciences seldom 

 sees beauty jn the spring, with her first flowers so delicately fash- 

 ioned; he hears no voice of angels in the whispering breezes, no 

 beauty in the valley and landscape with waving forest, running 

 brooks, and fields of flowers. All these are to him the same as the 

 broad waste. 



