300 TT/iViJOTr GARDENING. 



CONCLUSION. 



And now, regretfully taking leave of the interested readers who have followed 

 us to the end, we cannot close without some slight but hearty expression of the 

 genuine love and pure ennobling influence which comes from constant associa- 

 tions with flowers. Though Window Gardening has its difficulties, still its 

 pleasures are as yet but partially told, and its capabilities only half revealed. 

 How dreary our homes would be without some sweet presence of floral blos- 

 soms } Where they are, they seem to give a *' benediction of peace" for they 

 beguile many a weary hour, and soothe many a feverish or anxious life. Would 

 that all might be led ere long to study the beauties and acknowledge the sweet 

 influence of the flowers, " Nature's Jewels," whose life seems to be examples of 

 humility, purity, and patience. 



Ruskm says : " Flowers seem intended for the solace of ordmary humanity. 

 Children love them ; quiet, tender, contented, ordinary people love them as they 

 grow; luxurious and disorderly people rejoice in them gathered. They are the 

 cottagers' treasure, and in the crowded town, mark, as with a little broken frag- 

 ment of rainbow, the windows of the worker, in whose hearts rests the "cove- 

 nant of peace." To the child and the girl, to the peasant and manufacturing 

 operative, to the grisette and the nun, the lover and the monk, they are precious 

 always — 



" Bright gems of Earth in which, perchance we see 

 What Eden was — what Paradise may be." ' 



