Hbalth in Horticulture. 101 



walk along the well-kept garden paths, and murmur, " ITow de- 

 lightful ! " But your time is precious ; you must hasten back to 

 your office, to your counting-room, to your library — or, if you 

 are a woman, to your sewing, or possibly, to your kitchen, and 

 the old pain and weariness come back, and as for health, you 

 have not heard even so much as the rustle of her garments. 



If you would truly seek and find health, you must spend hours in 

 the sunshine, where you can breath the purest air. You must keep 

 close to the great, throbbing heart of nature ; your delicate hands 

 must not scorn contact with the dark, damp soil, for out of it are 

 the issues of life. 



Do you not remember the old Roman legend of the three 

 young men who went to consult the oracle at Delphi ; and how, 

 when they cried, " O Lord Apollo, tell us which of us shall be 

 king at Rome," there came a voice from the sanctuary which 

 said, " Whichever of you shall first kiss his mother." And, while 

 two of them were for hastening back to Rome where their mothers 

 dwelt, the third fell and kissed the earth, for he said, " The earth 

 is the true mother of us all," and he it was who ruled at Rome. 

 Dear old Mother Earth ! We are too apt to think of her only as 

 offering a resting-place, when work is done, and tired hands are 

 meekly folded over a pulseless heart. But there is magic in her 

 touch, and to the living, earnest, active man she brings a new and 

 quickening power. 



In horticulture, men would find a relief from that weariness, 

 against which they vainly contend, day after day, the result of too 

 constant devotion to business. The frequent and startling in- 

 stances of sudden death, or the equally sad and alarming cases of 

 paralysis or affections of the brain, whereby a man is incapaci- 

 tated for any mental effort, have led us to .seek for the cause. 

 We can easily see why an intemperate or a dissipated man, a man 

 who has an ill-ventilated, uncomfortable home, with poorly-pre- 

 pared or insullicient food, should suffer the penalty. But, that a 

 man of unexceptional habits, possessed of an ample fortune, with 

 a happy home and all the comforts and luxuries of civiliiied life, 

 should be stricken down, is accounted a mysterious dispensation 

 of Providence. On inquiry, we too often find that this man led a 



