THE GARDENERS' CHRONICLE OF AMERICA. 



861 



cannot call the hills and waves our own, or bend caress- 

 ingly above the mocking streamlet. The sculptor gives 

 us creations that are things of beauty and precious to the 

 eye, but we cannot aw-aken into life the inanimate marble. 



All the inspirations of the genius of man have a speech 

 and loveliness peculiar to themselves, but they share not 

 in the fond home tenderness as given to flowers. 



There is an innate love for the flower in the heart of 

 every being, and in those who seem wholly engrossed by 

 coarser things. The delicate sympathies to which the 

 love of flowers is allied are not lost or despised, but only 

 concealed and repressed by the incrustation of care and 

 strife with the world. Neglected — not forgotten. FIow'- 

 ers alone of all created things seem given to minister 

 solely to our spiritual life. They wake into being ; they 

 unfold their soft petals ; they put on the loveliness of 

 perfected bloom ; they gather up in their bosoms the dew 

 of a few summer nights, the sunshine of a few- summer 

 days, and then the w'ind that so lately rocked them to and 

 fro scatters their leaves over the earth, and they are gone 

 forever, and in this brief season they have only lived, 

 they have been of no service in the material world, but 

 voung eyes have grown glad w'ith a deeper light as they 

 gazed upon them, and cold hearts have been warmed with 

 a glow- they could not define. Souls vveary and worn have 

 remembered anew- the eternal bloom and beauty of the 

 Paradise of God, and life has grown fairer in their sight. 

 They have been to the child the first revelation of the in- 

 finite beauty and love. They have lifted the infidel out 

 of darkness into God's marvelous light. 



Flowers have kindred and association with all that is 

 best within us. They interpret and are sacred to our 

 affections. We make them gifts to those we love and 

 wear them for their sake, and plant them above their 

 graves. Clasped in the hand of the child, pressed to the 

 lips of love, wreathed in the tresses of the bride, or lying 

 on the cold bosom of the dead, they have a beauty and a 

 language given to nothing else. I have seen the rough 

 laborer, whose hands have toiled to w-eariness all day, 

 stop in his homeward walk and lay down his heavy im- 

 plements to pluck a few wayside flowers to make glad a 

 pale, sickly face that he remembered lying in a little crib, 

 and I felt there was a corner in his rude nature which 

 those who looked upon his dull, coarse-lined face never 

 saw, w'here gentle sympathies w-ere gathered which re- 

 ceived a ministry from Nature alone. 



I have seen the hard-featured speculator, whose 

 spiritual being seemed walled in by stocks and exchange, 

 pause with a sudden impulse and buy the freshest and 

 dewiest roses of some street vender, and I knew there 

 was a place in his heart yet open to the delicate ministra- 

 tions of beauty, that through the crevices of this wall of 

 custom its w^inged seeds might reach a not ungenial soil. 

 All of us have among our acquaintance, men endowed by 

 Nature with the love of flowers, in whom it has deepened 

 into a permanent and beautiful sentiment — men who still 

 find the old joy of their youth in gathering wild flowers 

 on the hills in a leisure hour, or tending with watchful 

 care the opening blossoms of a garden. 



No matter what a man may be or what his talents, ac- 

 complishments or wealth, there is latent in his composi- 

 tion a love for the beautiful. No matter what his environ- 

 ments, he turns to Nature for her oflferings. Who can 

 give them to him? Who can ]iroduce them? Who can 

 be the medium through which this love for the beautiful 

 can be enlarged? Is it the tradesman? No. Is it the 

 lawyer, the doctor, the minister, the painter, the sculptor, 

 the mechanic? No. Only the gardener is endowed and 

 in a position to cultivate and instruct us in the creation 

 of new loves and ideas. Now, if the love of the beautiful 



transcends every other, and the love of and desire for the 

 beautiful is paramount to all else, and the gardener is the 

 only medium through which this consummation is at- 

 tained, then the gardener stands upon the pinnacle of 

 achievement, the one great desirability. The only one 

 who can fill the measure of our desires in the cultivation 

 of what we love the most — flowers. Hence, the gardener 

 is a necessity. 



Does it ever occur to the layman what care, what 

 thought, what heartache both the horticultural and the 

 floricultural gardener suffers and undergoes? Is the 

 pittance he receives for his skill and labor the incentive 

 that stimulates him to greater and nobler production? 

 No. Money can only supply his wants. Money could 

 not reimburse him for his untiring devotion, nor could 

 give him the brains and the talent requisite for his office. 

 The employer can never know the sleepless nights and 

 his untiring efforts in the day, watching with expectant 

 heart and thought lest blighting frost or withering germ 

 might blast the tender plant or flower entrusted to his 

 keeping. His is the responsibility, to him w^e look for 

 results, and our only help is the money to supply his 

 needs. It is all summed up in these few sentences. The 

 agricultural gardener produces the useful by which w-e 

 live, and the horticultural and floricultural gardener pro- 

 duces the beauties that make life w-orth the living. 



Flowers are the sensual pleasure which approaches 

 nearest to an intellectual one, and may probably represent 

 the delight resulting from the perception of the harmony 

 of things and of truth as seen in God. The palm as an 

 evergreen tree, and the amaranth as a perdurable flower, 

 are emblems of immortality. If I am allowed to give a 

 metaphorical allusion to the future state of the blest, I 

 should imagine it by the orange grove in that sheltered 

 glen on which the sun is now beginning to shine, and of 

 which the trees are at the same time loaded with sw^eet 

 golden fruit and balmy silver flowers surrounded by whis- 

 pering myrtle. 



I should wish when the icy hand of death is laid upon 

 my brow that I might be surrounded with a wilderness 

 of flowers whose perfume would be an incense ascending 

 from memory's altar to waft my spirit to the land beyond 

 the stars. I would wish that the angels should be gar- 

 deners that I might feel assured that the floral kingdom 

 would be forever perpetuated. 



SOME QUESTIONS TO ANSWER. 



Can you stand in the courts of conscience 



And say to yourself "I did right," 

 When for pleasure you shot at the bird on the wing, 

 And ceased the song of the blithe, feathered thing 



As it fell to the earth in its flight? 



Can you lay a just claim to mercy 



And truthfully say "I'm humane," 

 ^^'hen you sec the distress of a four-footed friend 

 And pass quickly by — unwilling to lend 



The aid that will lessen its pain? 



Can you boast of a tender compassion. 



Yet go your indifferent way. 

 ^^'hen you witness a horse with too heavy a load. 

 Urged on with curses, the whip and the goad 



In the sweltering heat of the day ? 



Can you maintain it is justice, 



To countenance all of the wrong 

 Inflicted on creatures of earth, air and sea 

 By thoughtless man's inhumanity, 



And go on your way with a song? 



