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THE USES OF FLOWERS IN THE HOME. 259 
THE USES OF FLOWERS IN THE HOME. 
MRS, ANNA B. UNDERWOOD, LAKE CITY. 
Anything that will lend an additional charm to the home has an 
inestimable value. Life istoo full of homely and prosaic but neces- 
sary routine not to take advantage of all that is wholesome, sweet 
and beautiful. Itis greatly the habit among country folk to look 
upon flowers as a luxury, as trifling nonsense, foolishness and the 
care of them as so much wasted time; however, if once convinced of 
the refining, educational power of flowers, they will come to look 
upon them asa necessity,not a luxury. A love for flowers indicates 
a love for the beautiful; that love encourages tenderness and gen- 
tleness, and gentleness is refinement in the highest degree. A ten- 
year old lad, wishing to earn a little spending money, conceived the 
idea of selling some of the surplus of their garden truck. After his 
first day’s experience, having met with fair results, as he was a win- 
some child, in a burst of confidence, relating the various incidents 
occurring to him, he said: “I tell you, I have learned just what 
houses to gotonow. Ofcourse, every one can’t buy, but they ought 
totreat a fellow decently. I don’t go any more to houses that have 
no flowers in the window, for the people in them say ‘Get out! I don’t 
want any of your stuff!’ and slam the doorin my face. But when I 
see flowers in the window of a house, there the people say ‘Won’t you 
come in and get warm?’ and then they give me achair by the fire 
and talk pleasantly, and even if they dont buy I havea good time.” 
With that lad, flowers and kindness were almost synonymous 
terms, and with him also the influence was continued through life, 
as manifested by a keen artistic taste and gentle, refined manners, 
The fathers and sons are not so apt to exhibit love for flowers as 
the mothers and daughters. The reason for this lies in great meas- 
ure with the mothers; for they allow their boys todrift away from the 
refining influence of these thoughts of nature, through lack of asso- 
ciation. It is not necessary that a child be forced to cultivate flow- 
ers to develop a love for them; the very act of coercion is repellant 
and arouses an antagonism hard to allay. Itis not that he has no 
love forthe beauties, but he hates to be driven. Herein lies the 
great obstacle to general progression: human nature does not like 
to be driven, but it will submit to diplomatic coaxing and, uncon- 
sciously, perhaps, be led wherever reason dictates. So it can reason- 
ably be said that flowers havea refining influence. Many mothers 
bewail the fact that their children are so destructive and wonder 
why it is so, and yet it is an every day occurrence for a mother to 
give her child a flower to pick to pieces just to keep it quiet while she 
can Chat undisturbed with a friend. It appears a trifling incident; 
still, it is one of the many occasions given for the home education 
of the little ones. Beginning with the baby fingers, teach gentle- 
ness to inanimate as well as animate objects—the little ones are 
simply copies of those around—instil into their minds the fact that 
flowers have feeling and suffer from abuse. 
Flowers also develop conversationai powers and enlarge one’s vo- 
cabulary of words. With a flower in hand, the holder thereof has 
the power of asking for or conferring knowledge. The mere actof 
