SOCIETY OF NORTHERN ILLINOIS. 37? 



few annuals that by special management may be transformed into 

 winter bloomers. We should select those best adapted to our situa- 

 tion and reject those which are not, even though our friends do suc- 

 ceed with them. 1 should never recommend any one to attempt roses 

 in a sitting-room, and yet I know ladies who keep them in constant 

 bloom. A sunny kitchen window is just the place for them, the 

 steam from cooking furnishing the requisite moisture without too 

 great heat. Roses, carnations, camelias, daphnes, and many of what 

 are known as tender green-house plants, are apt to be like " Elipho- 

 let's wedding journey " — " not a spectacular success." 



If one has only a north window one need not eschew plants en- 

 tirely. Train an English ivy up each side and across the top; set a 

 sword fern in a hanging basket (it will grow rapidly if given all the 

 water it needs), and on a shelf below set Chinese primroses. The}'" 

 are beautiful plants, with flowers single, double or fringed, white or 

 of shades ranging from palest pink to deepest crimson, with a faint, 

 woody fragrance, reminding one of shady ravines, brooks and moss- 

 covered stones. If not content with this, try a Wardian case with 

 rex begonia, in winter surrounded by delicate ferns — gathered in 

 some forest ramble — and lycopodiams running up the sides. There 

 will be failures at first, no doubt, but true plant-lovers will persevere 

 and be rewarded. I believe the genuine lover of flowers is never dis- 

 couraged by failure or disappointment. Those who study nature, 

 searching ever deeper into her mysteries and her wonderful beauties, 

 find thejiiselves ever more enchanted by her loveliness. Fresh from 

 the hand of the Maker, nature ajjpeals to the heart as art, the work 

 of mortal hands, can never do. Of all her manifestations none wears 

 a more subtle web of enchantment than do flowers. Whoever gazes 

 into the upturned face of the pansy, listens to the fairy chimes rung 

 by lily bells, breathes the perfumed insense from censers of purple, 

 scarlet and gold, feasts the eye upon the brilliant hues and exquisite 

 textures of the floral world to love them, has lost his heart forever. 

 This is a true love, an undying affection; the spell is upon him from 

 which he can never hope to be released. It is a devotion that is 

 richly repaid by the sweetest perfumes, the loveliest of forms, and 

 the most delicate and dazzling of colors — a love that is never 

 wounded by indifference or stung by ingratitude, but which elevates 

 and inspires one to the worship of the great Giver of so much that 

 is beautiful. 



When a child I used to read a story of elfish sprites, that came 

 at night from a bouquet of flowers, placed by a bedside, and pierced 

 she sleeper with a myriad of revengeful darts — a legend growing 

 out of the old theory that the odor of flowers was fatal to life. If I 

 had written the story I would have peopled the blossoms with benefi- 

 cent fairies, who not only gathered up all foul, poisonous gases and 

 converted them into fragrance and beauty, distributing pure, life- 

 giving elements in return, but also stimulated to generous impulses, 



