58 Wisconsin State Horticultural Society. 



California are similar. No policemen, or guards are on the watch. 

 Flowers could readily be stolen, and a great deal of careless or 

 malicious mischief perpetrated, but nothing is ever harmed. The 

 restraint that prevails furnishes indisputable testimony to the mirac- 

 ulous educational and refining power of such delightful resorts* 

 where the rich and the poor alike may enjoy them. 



" 'Tis the flowers 

 "We seek, and ever find. 'Tis well, 'tis well 

 That nature plants them thick above our path; 

 And varied — varied for our varying moods." 



" They grow where e'er kind nature planted them — 

 Some in wide vacant places; some twixt roots 

 Of trf es ; some in clefts of rocks, and some 

 A merry company upon a rock." 



No house looks home-like in these days without flowers about it 

 some where, in door or out, and their cultivation is becoming more 

 and more popular. It is a healthy occupation and amusement. It 

 offers to all exercise in the open air, and in return for it will give 

 the workers beauty in form and coloring. It offers to us the most 

 unalloyed pleasures. Every day it creates a new interest, for fresh 

 leaves and flowers are developed and open their chalices freighted 

 with the richest perfume. The same sunshine is equally essential 

 to our health, that is necessary to plant growth. In too many houses 

 its life-giving rays are excluded. It fades the glowing colors of 

 the carpets, the gay upholstering of furniture and curtains, so it can 

 not enter our domiciles. We should learn a lesson from the plants 

 we cultivate, consider their ways and mend our own. 



The presence of flowers refines, beautifies and sweetens. We 

 plead for the beautiful in farm life. "We should do our utmost 

 to encourage the beautiful, for the useful encourages itself." That 



O 7 3 



existence is surely contemptible which regards only the gratification 

 of instinctive wants, and the preservation of a body made to perish. 

 We should go higher than Bunyan's man, who was figuratively 

 represented with his nose nearly touching the ground, which he 

 vigorously dug with his muck rake. I do not know as I would say 

 that a taste for flowers will wholly change a man's nature; yet I'm 



