220 State Horticultural Society. 



THE TRUE VALUE OF FLOWERS. 



(Mrs. George E. Dugan, Sedalia, Mo.) 



"Life is real, life is earnest 



And the grave is not its goal; 

 Dust Ihou art, todust returnest 



Was not spoken of the soul." 



How many times we have heard this quotation, yet how little 

 real thought we have given to it. Life is the chief thing in all the 

 world, the best thing in all the world, and the most mysterious. From 

 the standpoint of life — little as we comprehend it — let us discuss flow- 

 ers, one of the greatest blessings the Creator has bestowed upon a 

 heedless and often ungrateful people. We are so accustomed to think 

 of ourselves as the only real manifestation of God's love and power, 

 that we ignore other forms of life, or regard them merely as acces- 

 sories, or appendages to ourselves. J.Ian in his boundless egotism 

 does not concern himself much about other phases of life. Unless 

 he happens to be a naturalist of some sort, he is too apt to lose sight 

 of the grandeur and beauty pertaining to those manifestations in 

 which he has no particular interest. To a large nuipber of otherwise 

 intelligent persons, a plant does not represent life at all, yet nothing 

 grows that does not live, and I am inclined to believe that some 

 plants have an instinct, which might almost be called intelligence. 

 Victor Hugo once said, "All life is a part of the one great life that is 

 the moving power of the world." When we realize this truth, we 

 feel a solemn awe, as we stand in the presence of the great trees, at 

 whose feet nestle the wild violets. Ruskin has written, "That which 

 wc foolishly call vastness is, rightly considered, not more wonderful, 

 not more impressive, than that which we insolently call littleness." 

 It would be difficult to estimate the value of a flower from a material 

 standpoint. As the intellectual life is higher than the physical, so is 

 the spiritual higher than the material. We cannot value a flower, as 

 we do a beefsteak, or a cabbage head, because the financial is the very 

 least part of the true value of flowers. 



The influence of a rose is not perceptible to a gross mind, yet the 

 value is there, as real as though it were perceived ; the sad thing 

 about it is, the grossness of the undiscerning mind, and its unper- 

 ceived but nevertheless real loss. The grandeur of any character lies 

 wholly in force and fineness of soul. Beauty has its own unique 

 place in the world ; we may ignore it, and fail tO' profit by its lessons, 

 but it is here for a purpose, and its purpose is to lift us up to higher 



