108 THE FLORIST. 



ON FLORAL TASTES AND THEIR RESULTS. 



We shall pursue the plan recommended by writers on logic and 

 rhetoric, and sanctioned by being the most natural one, and arrange 

 the advantages arising from a love of flowers in an ascending series, 

 beginning with the least, and advancing to the most important. 

 Yet even the lowest mental benefit in the scale is of incalculable 

 value, as our readers will at once confess when we mention it. Flo- 

 ral tastes counteract worldliness^ by drawing the thoughts from the 

 excitement and competition and bustle of life, and giving us some- 

 thing to work upon and to love, without reference to pecuniary pro- 

 tit. It must be distinctly remembered, that it is a love of flowers 

 for their own sake, of which alone this advantage can be predicated, 

 and not the mere possession and cultivation of them. Even the 

 objects of our religion, so pure and so holy, may be contemplated 

 and employed for mercenary ends ; and there can be no doubt that 

 many skilful growers of flowers have only valued them as articles of 

 merchandise. Our observations, then, do not refer to those who 

 cultivate flowers for a livelihood only, nor to those whose sole bond 

 of union with them is the hope of conquest and fame at an exhibi- 

 tion; but to all, whether amateurs or dealers, who love the objects of 

 their solicitude, and would carefully tend them, although they had 

 no pecuniary value, and were never destined to attract the eyes of 

 others. Such an appreciation of the beauties of Nature in this de- 

 partment of her works, will counteract the sordidness which is more 

 or less incident to the pursuits of commerce, and the other engrossing 

 cares of life. 



" Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow ; they toil not, 

 neither do they spin ; and yet I say unto you, that even Solomon 

 in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of these !" In this beau- 

 tiful lesson of the great Master of wisdom we have the principle 

 stated which we are now illustrating ; and the object contemplated 

 by Him is identical with ours in these papers. He knew how prone 

 the best men are to fancy that their worldly affairs cannot prosper 

 unless they are always and exclusively attending to them with anxious 

 heart and furrowed brow, and therefore pointed to objects inferior to 

 man, which arrive at perfection without thoughtfulness, by the Di- 

 vine oversight and blessing. He knew how the natural eye would 

 be opened and strained in the search after food and raiment and 

 luxuries, to the neglect of the intellectual and moral powers, and 

 therefore He called attention to the lilies of the field, as calculated 

 to engage the mental vision, and open the heart to a light and beauty 

 too hable to be neglected and tbrown into darkness. 



At the risk of having our political economy laughed at, we must 

 express our conviction, that in the present age the attention requires 

 to be turned to pursuits wiiich are not profitable, or which bring no 

 return except in mental enjoyment, and the gratification of moral 



