76 State Horticultural Society. 



If flowers have no ethical worth, why have flower missions been 

 established in all the principal cities of this country ? And why do the 

 refined and noble women of the W. C. T. U. spend their time and money 

 to take floral offering's to the crime-biirdened men and women in our 

 penitentiaries? I have known the gift of a pot of pink geranium to 

 make better the condition of a whole row of tenement houses. The 

 sick woman to whom the plant was given insisted on having her room 

 made clean because the lovely flower looked so out of place there amid 

 the gloom and dirt, and her neighbors tidied up their homes because 

 they looked so slovenly by contrast with hers. Then some thoughtful 

 soul distributed along this row a few packets of nasturtium seeds, ai d 

 the small grassless spots of soil were spaded up and the seeds carefully 

 planted and cultivated. Thus this entire dingy row was metamorphosed 

 by a plant, and a few seeds, until it grew to be a sweet, clean and whole- 

 some place. 



If you doubt this, try the experiment some time. Go into the 

 slums of any city carrying with you a bright plant in bloom, present it 

 to the most slovenly woman you happen to see. In a week or two go 

 back and you will find that the slattern has washed both her face and 

 her window panes, and she will greet you with a glad smile and show 

 you proudly that her geranium has a new cluster of buds almost ready 

 to burst into flower. If you had given this woman a tract, she would 

 have thrown it in your face. Had you attempted to preach a sermon to 

 her she might have thrown boiling water over you, but the unobtrusive 

 moral influence of a little flower is irresistible. Therefore do I affiru! 

 that the ethical value is the highest and truest value found in the fl u-al 

 world, for this is the value given it by the august power that created 

 loveliness. 



One Easter day a mission worker brought into a slum Sunday schor.l 

 a snow white Bermuda lily. The children had never seen anything so 

 beautiful near the reach of their small fingers. One little girl with 

 much soiled hands, put forth a tiny finger to touch one of the fragrant 

 petals, but a shocked expression passed over her face as she observed t^io 

 contrast between her grimy hands and the pure petals of vhe lily. Very 

 hurriedly she withdrew her hand and left the room. Soon returning 

 she again put forth her finger and just as quickly drew it back — it was 



