THE SECRETARY'S PORTFOLIO. 411 



reason that they arc not more grown is that the country is new, and few have 

 capital enough to gratify their tastes. 



Another gentleman said it needed very little capital to indulge a taste for 

 flowers. A dollar, or even leS'J, will nnikc a ilne show. 



Another formerly owned a farm on which was a little flower garden that had 

 borne flowers enough to take thirty dollars in prizes in a single year. The 

 place was sold, and the pnrchaser plowed up the flower bed for early potatoes, 

 being "handy by" the house, where his family could conveniently hunt the 

 bugs. The yield was three barrels, which brought him just three dollars and 

 fifty cents! And the influence of the two crops on the children of the respec- 

 tive families, was also widely different, as may be inuigined. 



Other speakers said that farmers generally do love flowers, — at least as much 

 as city people do, — and floriculture on the farm is rapidly on the increase. 



President Barry thought the average farmer of Western New York does not 

 his whole duty in the way of embellishing the surroundings of his home, which 

 are often the most unsightly portion of the whole farm. There should alivays 

 be a lawn. He has seen many a home where young ladies would be trying to 

 play croquet where the grass was three feet high, and a small patch at that, 

 and the young men of the family were off somewhere after a horse that will 

 trot in 2.40. If the farmer would elevate his calling, politically and socially, 

 to its proper position, he must begin with the surroundings of his family. 

 Farming is hard work, but it need not be drudgery. 



An old gentleman over 70 years of age, thought the farmers had been slan- 

 dered, — did not believe there, are ten farms without flowers between here and 

 Seneca county, where he lives. There is not one within five miles of his 

 own place. 



Mr. Hoxie, of Oneida, denied that farmers as a class were less interested in 

 flowers than most city residents. In most rural neighborhoods farmers and 

 farmers' wives and daughters interchange flowers, and have done so from the 

 first settlement of the country, when only the simple, old-fashioned flowers 

 were grown. He recommended the cultivation of a taste for botany, and a 

 heightened appreciation of the manifold beauties of insects, also. 



MANAGEMENT OF FLOWERS. 



*' I believe I take more pains with my plants and flower borders than any of 

 my neighbors, and have the poorest luck. I cannot understand it, but my 

 plants always look sickly and my flowers are always scarce, while others that 

 seem to take little or no trouble over theirs succeed admirably, and it is just 

 unaccountable." 



This remark was made to the writer not long ago, and it is but a single case 

 among hundreds of others quite similar. The fact is, plants and flowers must 

 be loved to succeed well. One must enjoy a plant so well as to study its wants 

 and habits, and supply just what is needed at the right time to make them do 

 nicely. 



The lady who made the above remark takes pride in having flowers, and 

 orders a great deal of care given to them, but the same mechanical treatment 

 is given to each one, which will never do, any more than one suit of clothes will 



