Summer Meeting. 31 



to a perfect tree and each tree was a faithful copy of the other. The air 

 for some distance was full of fragrance. Taken altogether that picture 

 is one of the most interesting in the large scrap-book of nature studies 

 held tenaciously in my memory. 



To me, one of the most interesting of all the many admirable traits 

 of the hardy plant is its constancy and its few requirements. When once 

 it is established, it will grow and blossom with annual regularity, often 

 improving with the years, and always hiding away in its life a wealth 

 of perennial surprises. 



"Oh. the snow drops are in bloom !" cries some enthusiast who has 

 been searching the garden borders for earlv treasure. 



A few days later from the direction of the bulb-bed comes a rapture- 

 full voice, fraught with the importance of a great discovery, crying out, 

 "Did you know the crocus blossoms were out?" Ybu hurry away to 

 behold this vision, and sure enough there they' are, more beautiful you 

 imagine, than ever they were before, so that you have a sensation, some- 

 what, I suppose, like that which thrills the gold seeker's heart when after 

 weary years of prospecting, he suddenly strikes a vein of rich ore. 



There is something to admire, to create enthusiasm, even to cause 

 a feeling of awe, in beholding the great' variety, and marvelous beauty 

 of the hardy plants. One Easter day some years ago, while visiting 

 a friend in Kansas, I saw a front door-3'ard actually glorious with its 

 decoration of snow-white Burmuda lilies. There were hundreds of them 

 in full bloom, and thousands of buds. I have never seen a more impres- 

 sive floral spectacle. This recalls one of my pet ideas concerning flowers ,' 

 perhaps I may have exploited it before this Society on a previous occa- 

 sion, but I will crave the privilege of saying again, that each individual 

 should courageously express his own tastes and preferences in the plants 

 lie cultivates ; and the manner of arranging them on the lawn, or in the 

 garden. 



Since the paper read at a horticultural meeting several years ago, 

 on "Individual Expression in Flowers," the opinions therein expressed 

 have returned to me in' various journals and magazines, but no matter 

 if they were better dressed, or more fancifully decorated, I knew them 

 at once for my own original ideas, and congratulated myself that I had 

 had the courage to express them, disregarding the fact that they were new, 

 and might be unpopular. 



Emerson once said, "God will not have his work made manifest by 

 cowards," therefore in horticulture, or in ideas, let us be faithful to our- 

 selves, and original in our work. 



A correspondent writing for Current Literature declares that "simple 

 ideas, with every idea well planned and well carried out, result in the best 



