COUNTY REPORTS. 347 



are not in the babit of doing it. for In the entire economy of nature we find all 

 organs adapted to the worli they are required to perform. 



I am well aware of the fact that bees worli on over- ripe or half-decayed, or 

 fruit punctured by birds, wasps or insects at such time when no honey can be 

 gathered. Such juice soon sours in the hi\e, becoming unfit for food of bees for 

 winter, and disease and death is the result. Many bee-lie epers are fruit-growers, 

 and their testimony universally agrees with the statements here made. Fruit- 

 grower of no less repute than Samuel Miller says : "M.y full crop of apples was 

 due, I think, to the bees." Hi&^sons have a large apiary near his orchard. He 

 further staces that upon inquiry he learned of other orchards whose crop this year 

 (1892) are credited to bees. Prof. Waite of Washington advises all fruit-growers 

 to keep bees. He says : "Bees do more to fertilize flowers than any other insect." 

 If horticulturists and agriculturists would attend each other's conventions and 

 discuss these questions of mutual interest, it would be found to be profitable to 

 both. 



THE MISSION OF FLOWERS. 



MISS E. LINDSEY. 



God might have made the world without flowers ; but the fact that He did not 

 is sufficient to prove that He not only loves them himself, but wants us to. 



I hear people (mostly men) say, what's the use to bother with flowers? there 

 is no money in them, and you cannot eat them. True, to the average farmer's wife 

 or daughter there is no money in flowers. But then it is written, "Man shall not 

 live by bread alone;" and "Consider the lilies, how they grow." 



If the Maker of the universe could spend his time in creating flowers, surely 

 poor little mortals like us could not be more usefully employed than in tending and 

 caring for them , 



Beauty in the divine economy is one of the most potent factors in the eleva- 

 tion of the race. We are all more or less susceptible to beauty of form, or color, 

 to harmony of sound. The ministry of flowers, though a silent one, is full of such 

 sweet persuasiveness that even the sinful and debased cannot resist their influence. 

 And the language they speak is always one of love, of hope, of peace, of blessed 

 harmony. 



' ' We heard not a sound of their marshaling feet, 



Saw ne'er a gleam of a spear, 

 'Till their tents stood sancily fronting each street, 



And the army of blossoms is here." 



Whether gracing the family table with their subtile air of refinement, the mar- 

 riage altar with light and color, or placed on the bier of the dead by the hand of 

 afl'ection, they speak the universal language of the soul. 



So innocent and sweet is the ministry of flowers that every one must own 

 their sacred benefits. 



The ministry of beauty is one of universal sway. And why should we not 

 confess that in God's thought the most beautiful and winsome things were intended 

 to reach souls that thoughtless hearts would never find. 



A study of nature leads us to believe that since the very dawn of life on the 

 earth, flowers have held a very important place in the happiness and civilization 

 of mankind. 



When we consider how much they brighten our homes and cheer our lives, 

 we cannot help wondering that they are not more generally cultivated. 



