108 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



" To comfort man — to whisper hope, 

 Whene'er his faith is dim : 

 For who so careth for the flowers 

 Will much more care for him." 



A home with these beantifnl surronuding?, and, as a consequence, an attract- 

 ive interior, inspires a higher and more unselfish love in children, and this 

 unselfish home love will be a safeguard amid temptation, more potent 

 than the most rigid code of morals to whicli you can train them. 



This making home beautiful is, I admit, more especially the work of woman, 

 but a woman has small opportunity for beautifying a home if a husband con- 

 siders all effort in this direction a waste of time. God never intended we 

 should be indifferent to, or neglectful of these loveliest, purest, and sweetest of 

 all his bounties, for they come within the reach of all, as I will prove to you, 

 and flowers are God's vicegerents, having a high and holy mission to perform. 



"In the sweet-scented pictures, heavenly artist, 



With which thou palnicst nature's wide-spread hall, 

 What a deiisihtful lesson thou impartest 

 Of love to all." 

 Then 



" Who shall say that flowers 

 Dress not Heaven's bowers? 

 Who its love, without us, can fancy— or sweet lore? 

 Who shall even dare 

 To say we sprang not there, 

 And came not down that love might bring one piece of heaven the more ?" 



I believe many an overburdened housekeeper would prolong her life and 

 find in the occupation an element of the purest enjoyment, if she would have 

 a small flower garden and cultivate it herself. We may love flowers and enjoy 

 them in a degree, if grown and cared for by another; but to fully appreciate 

 what they can be to us, we must cultivate and watch over them ourselves. I 

 know of what I speak in this matter of cultivating flowers. Being a farmer's 

 wife, and commencing this life in a new country, having lived only in a city in 

 earlier years, I was often toil and careworn, as farmers' wives many times are 

 under such circumstances. "When weary and discouraged I have gone into my 

 garden, worked among my flowers, ministered to their needs, enjoyed their 

 beauty and fragrance, and returned to my household duties refreshed, strength- 

 ened, and reinspired to bear the burdens that had fallen upon me, thanking 

 (jcd for this source of pure and refined pleasure. 



"Blest flowers ! there breathes not one unfraught 

 With lessons sweet and new." 



I feel sure that if to every school-house in our land there were attached a 

 garden, where, at the proper season, teachers and scholars could spend a small 

 portion of the time now allotted to study, it would be a source of inestimable 

 benefit and pleasure in after years, and of incalculably more advantage than the 

 smattering of botany now generally taught. Scholars would acquire an experi- 

 mental knowledge of the wants and requirements of various families of plants, 

 and a taste for and love of these sweet ministers of God, so bright and 

 beautiful. 



" Ye speak of human life, 



Its mystery — the beautiful and brief ; 

 Its endless fading midst the tempest strife, 

 Even as a delicate leaf. 



