THE FARM MOTHER AND HER FLOWERS. 463 



If you will, busy farm mother, try one summer with a flower 

 garden, I think you will learn the delight that is pictured in one 

 of Longfellow's poems when he says : 



"Then Nature, the old nurse, took 

 The child upon her knee, 

 Saying, 'Here is a story book 

 Thy Father hath written for thee.' 

 So he wandered away and away 

 With Nature, that dear old nurse, 

 Who sang to him night and day 

 The songs of the universe. 

 If ever the way grew long 

 And his strength began to fail, 

 She sang a more beautiful song 

 And she told a more wonderful tale." 



Mr. Oliver Gibbs: The members of the lower house of this 

 joint session have been keeping silent for fear of getting in' the 

 way of the ladies who might wish to discuss these papers. I would 

 like to offer one or two suggestions on the subject of growing 

 flowers on the farm. Whatever may be said of the farmer who 

 neglects to have an orchard, whether he cares much about it 

 or whether he does not, it cannot be said of the farm mothers that 

 they do without flowers because they do not love them. You 

 will hardly ever find a farm mother but what is a lover of flow- 

 ers and would be glad to have those flowers growing at her home. 

 We should look at this question from their standpoint, and it is a 

 question we want to help to solve with the women of the farm, 

 overburdened as they are with the labors of the household and the 

 farm. It is a very difficult matter for them to get their husbands 

 or their children or their hired men to take hold and help them 

 about the matter, because they are also hard pushed for time. I 

 have seen even some women who were not altogether amiable 

 in their manner who were lovers of flowers, and I know of only 

 one instance in my experience of a lady who I thought did not 

 appreciate flowers very well. Now a word about this matter of 

 time. Here is a way in which the farm mother can manage to 

 have some flowers, although it is not the ideal way. She can 

 certainly get her husband, when he lays out the farm garden, to 

 leave a little spot where flower seeds can be planted the same as 

 he plants his corn and potatoes in his garden, and when he goes 

 out to cultivate he can give the rows a flirt one way, and when he 

 comes in to dinner he can give the row a flirt the other way — 

 and I want to say that the flowers raised in our garden have been 

 treated in that way. Of course there is a little attention the mother 

 must give to the germination of those seeds, and certainly she 

 can get the husband and children to give a few minutes' time each 

 day, just going and coming to and from the house, to give them 

 horse cultivation. 



Mr. A. K. Bush : I can suggest another way by which it 

 may be made possible for the busy farm wives to have flowers, and 



