Addresses — Flowers for All. 257 



seeking to raise the refinement of these to a higher tone. In the 

 effort, we shall do our state and country service, as with increase of 

 pure pleasures comes decrease of vice. 



That there is an inherent love of flowers in the heart of most per- 

 sons, surely no one will deny; that the time given to their culture is 

 full of the truest enjoyment is undoubted, but there are very many 

 who bear in their hearts the love, who never find time to gratify it; 

 and why? Fifteen minutes a day will keep several flower beds in 

 perfect order, if attended to regularly, and with judgment. Who 

 does not pass fifteen minutes in a day less profitably? It is so 

 much trouble, is another reason ; but this never comes from a true 

 lover of flowers. What is better worth a little trouble, than to 

 brighten and refine a home with the ornaments of Nature? In this 

 grand western land, where ground is so free in its breadth and 

 space as not to be fully appreciated, want of room can only be 

 alleged by the incorrigibly lazy. Poor men own lots which in an 

 eastern city would be sufficient for blocks of houses; and no family 

 need try to raise a few straggling plants in the window of a fifth 

 story tenement room, as is done by the city poor. 



A more valid excuse is the expense. To have flowers, something 

 more than earth is needed. Let a young girl try to prepare a little 

 piece of ground for flowers; immediately wants present themselves; 

 the bed dug and raked; where are the roots, the seeds, the plants 

 and cuttings? She has no money. A farmer's hard earned money 

 must, in most instances, after his family are plainly clothed, go to 

 purchase the means of making the farm more productive, or labor 

 more profitable. Flower seeds are an extravagance not to be 

 thought of. An enthusiastic lover of flowers might fill up the beds 

 from the woods, but it requires acquaintance with the " lore of the 

 forest," and she has it not; besides, she has had these, lovely as 

 they are, all her life, and she wants those that she sees in gardens 

 — city flowers. 



Did it never occur to anyone, that amidst all our charities this 

 matter is overlooked; that those able to purchase, and they who 

 year by year save seed for their own use might easily give to those 

 unable to obtain them otherwise, and thus reap for themselves a 

 summer of blessings? Who that has had the privilege of taking 

 flowers to the aged and invalid, receiving their grateful thanks, but 

 would desire to increase their power to do good in this way? 



