a *, 
260 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
taking a beautiful flower between the fingers induces thought, offer- 
ing ittoa friend increases the thought force, which is soon mani- 
fested in speech. Perhaps, it is nothing but a pansy. Cannot the 
imagination picture the words as being loving and tender, mayhap 
full of reminiscenses of the past and of a friend who so loved the 
modest beauties, or expressing wonderment at the great potentiality 
of mother nature, which makes it possible for her to manifest her 
thoughtsin such varied ways. 
Flowers are so useful for home decoration. It is taken for granted 
that there is a well kept garden with the old time favorites, pansies, 
sweet peas, mignonette, etc., growing in it. During the summer 
have them in the house, not too many—save the great abundance 
for festive occasions—but have several small vases that will hold 
from one to half dozen flowers—it only takes a moment to fill such. 
Always have one for the center of the table in the dining room. 
Have a restless, uneasy child slip out in the morning while break- 
fast is preparing and get just one pansy for each member of the 
family, first instructing it to pick them so as to preserve each bead 
of dew intact—and lay it neatly on each napkin with a pin beside it. 
The little one is busied and pleasantly taught to work for others. 
At noon vary the decoration by a cluster of sweet peas or other 
seasonable flower. During winter, when flowers are scarce,a pretty 
plant for the center of the table and a green leaf from a rose geran- 
ium or nutmeg geranium or lemon verbena is fully as attractive, 
and the perfume so pervasive and sweet. 
Flowers are so full of expression. Poets from the far away periods 
of the past, down to our own times, have without exception ascribed 
to flowers many and varied sentiments, so that by the skillful selec- 
tion of a few a volume of thoughts may be indicated. 
I wonder if there was ever a time when the father and mother 
experienced a tender feeling that induced the exchange of a bunch of 
flowers—maybe only one, but that one meaning so much. Was not 
the accompanying sensation delightful? Was it not followed bya 
pressure of hands—and perhaps (a vivid imagination suggests this) 
by a pressure of lips? Fathers and mothers, continue to be laddies 
and lassies; exchange the priceless gifts day by day. It cannot be 
done without a loving thought and word; and then aches will be 
forgotten, worries cast aside, the world be illuminated and heaven 
in reality with you. And at last these words of the gude wife will 
be possible: “We hae been mair than man and wife, we hae been 
sweethearts all the time!” 
My SHALLOW CULTIVATOR'—Last summer I felt the need of a fine- 
tooth cultivator, while plants were young and small, that would not 
throw earth. Havinga wood frame cultivatorin the barn laid aside 
for a more modern steel frame, I brought it down, took of the large 
teeth and having previously purchased two pounds of 60-penny wire 
spikes, I bored holes in the wood frame three inches apart and in- 
serted the spikes and found I had a shallow cultivator that was a 
great punisher of small weeds and would not cover the plants.—[Ex. 
