144 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 



FLORICULTURE. 



BY ME. J. W. HAREOD OF ITHACA. 



The subject assigned me is so vast in its scope that when one anticipates 

 considering it in public he is lost to know how to handle it, especially 

 when he can not surmise who his hearers shall be. Could we but be 

 assured that all were lovers of llowers, the task were not hard; but we 

 find so man}-, especially men, who api)arently see no beauty, except it 

 be in a horse or a hog, that we can not help hesitating somewhat in 

 a])proaching the matter. 



In these days, when the rush and scramble for the almighty dollar is 

 so great that men by thousands will leave home and friends for uncer- 

 tainties in the Klondike, facing all kinds of privations, desitution, and 

 death, that they may become rich quickly, we can but wonder how far 

 man will depart from the image of his Creator, the author of the beauti- 

 ful. 



How few there seem to be who have heard the Master say, " Consider 

 the lilies of the field," how they grow. More glorious are they than the 

 greatest king that ever ruled a kingdom. It is true, however, that once in 

 a while we meet a man who dares admit that he is " a regular old woman 

 for flowers." What an expression! What has brought about such a state 

 of things? we ask, and the only solution is that in the primitive con- 

 dition we have found things, we, in our haste to improve, destroyed the 

 beautiful wildlings of the forest without a care, and became absorbed in 

 making the soil produce only another crop of flowers — for what do we 

 grow but flowers? Farmers talk about the first bloom of this crop and 

 the second bloom, never thinking of the beauty of the minute flowers. 

 Then again, how they deplore the fact that it needs so much Paris green 

 to kill those pesky bugs who are bent on devouring those flowers that try 

 to bloom on the vines, and must if Ave get any potatoes. 



But to our subject^ — how they grow. ^Vhat is there that so cheerfully 

 greets us as soon as the snows and blasts of winter have gone, as do 

 the flowers of the woods — yea, sooner than they, the snowdrop and 

 crocus in the garden, so quickly followed by the tulips and hyacinths? 

 So bright and gladsome are they that the most ignorant is attracted, and 

 ask, "what are they?'' "They are from bulbs that we planted." "Wbon?" 

 *'■ Last fall." " Well, now, they are pretty. I guess Fll get my wife some 

 of them." But he forgets, as easily as when he left the mirror how grey 

 his locks were growing. We have often planted these earliest beauties 

 in midwinter (during a break-up), and been richly repaid for our pains. 



We can not dwell long on any one phase of this subject. There are 

 many bulbous plants we might mention — grand lilies that are perfectly 

 hardy and no further care than the first planting in a well-drained soil, 

 without a particle of manure at the roots; summer flowering bulbs with- 

 out number are there, that we must pass by, incidentally mentioning the 

 flaming gladiolus, so interesting in its varied colors that we can not slight 

 it. 



