16 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



most valuable inheritance, certainly the one that has aflferded me most real pleas- 

 ure. I know, too, that it has grown on me until it almost amounts to a passion. 

 Yet when I attempted to write something that would be of practical use to you, I 

 found myself in the dilemma that every school-boy has passed through when 

 ■ attempting his first essay, namely : I wrote down this great truth and starter, 

 " There are a great many kinds of flowers," and then stopped short, experiencing, 

 as the boy did, that the truth was too big for me and I had exhausted myself. But 

 for truth we should always be thankful, and for this one 1 thank God daily. Lit- 

 ■erally, he has planted them everywhere, from down in the tropics where the mag- 

 nolias and jasmines rear their proud heads up into His sunlight, offering a thanks- 

 giving of perfume and of beauty, even to the mountain tops in eternal snow, where 

 the adventurous traveler finds the modest forget-me-nots and eidel weis keeping 

 their little blue eyes on God in silent prayer. Everywhere, everywhere, that Hii 

 <;reature3 go you find them to comfort and cheer. 



The cultivation of flowers is one of the most seductive of pleasures, and here 

 I refer to the manual labor connected with their growth, I do not believe that any 

 one can derive the same pleasure who simply knows them to wear them after they 

 have been purchased from the florist, as that one who plants, waters and prunes 

 until flower- time comes; and then with what a satisfaction is worn the rose resting 

 on a cushion of smilax or citronella, all grown by her own hand. Can any corsage 

 bouquet, be it ever so costly, be so fragrant and beautiful as that one composed of 

 flowers, every detail of growth, leaf, branch and bud you intimately know, watch- 

 ing the opening sepals to see if the delicate petals beneath are pink or blue, even as 

 a young mother watches the opening of baby's eyelids to see if eyes of blue or 

 eyes of brown are concealed beneath. 



The pleasure of propagating flowers in the various ways, from seeds, from 

 layers, etc., is greater even than the cultivation of plants that some one else has 

 induced to take to themselves separate individual lives. This 1 consider of high 

 educative value, for I believe a child gets more true growth from simply raising one 

 rose or begonia to bloom from cutting or seed than they would from the study of a 

 dozen pages in geography or arithmetic. You may call this high treason if you 

 like, but you let children rear and tend something into life and you soften and 

 gentle them; you bring them into touch with nature, and through nature you lead 

 them up to God. For I am convinced no human can be wholly bad who has left in 

 his make-up love for a flower. 



There is hardly a home so poor that cannot claim its pot of flowers. The 

 spirit of the Master se^ms to be in them. A quotation, if you please : '• The hum- 

 bler the home, the more pleasure they seem to take in growing. Nowhere have I 

 ever seen such wealth of red and gold as in the hollyhocks, sunflowers and asters 

 that grow on either side of the path that leads to the laborer's door." Or where 

 does the morning-glory so luxuriate as over his lowly thatched porch? Wherever 

 you find their yards filled with flowers, you find them sober, industrious and God- 

 fearing. Could we engage in a nobler mission than in the giving of a few plants 

 and seeds to our poorer neighbors, thereby enabling .them to take their few 

 thoughts out of self and of the pinching poverty that surrounds them ? Ideally, 

 sowing seeds of kindness for the harvest by and by. 



This leads me to speak of the highest pleasure my flowers alford me — that of 

 dividing with others. They are like good deeds, they grow by giving, and nothing 

 makes finer roses than by plucking off those that are full blown and giving to oth- 

 ers. They have that rich quality that Shakspeare attributes to mercy. They 



