402 AKNUAL KEPORT 



MORAL INFLUEIfCE OF THE CULT1VATI02S" OF FLOWERS — AND OF 



FLOWERS. 



The cultivation of the beautiful should be the desire of everyone. 

 Goethe's beautiful sentiment, '• Cultivate the beautiful, for the use- 

 ful encourages itself," is worth remembering and practicing. " Flow- 

 •ers, " says Ruskin, " seem intended for the solace of ordinary human- 

 ity — children love them; quiet, tender, contented ordinary people 

 love them as they grow; luxurious and disorderly people rejoice in 

 them gathered. They are the cottager's treasure, and in the cro'.vded 

 town mark as with a little broken fragment of rainbow the windows 

 of the workers in whose hearts rests the covenant of peace. To the 

 child and girl, to the peasant and manufacturing operative, to the 

 Grisette and the nun, the lover and the monk, they are precious al- 

 ways." 



I have a great pity for any one who does not love flowers. 



" The love of the beautiful never becomes extinct in the human 

 soul. It may be crushed by selfishness and avarice, blurred and 

 • stained by sin and crime, but deep in every heart the latent spark re- 

 mains, and needs but some purifying influence to spring it into 

 healthy action." 



"Flowers," says Pliny, "are the joys of the shrubs that bear 

 them," and that eminent observer might have added, " and those who 

 cultivate them." 



The health and pleasure derived from the cultivation of flowers to 

 those who love them are of the highest importance. I never pass the 

 dwelling of a person in whose yard or window lean see but a solitary 

 flower, but that a feeling comes to me that within is a cultivated 

 taste, a kind and loving heart, and a happier home than where no 

 flowers are seen. 



The list of flowers I usually plant are: Geraniums, pansies, verbe- 

 nas, heliotrope, rose geranium, phlox, of variety; nasturtium, feverfew 

 and golden feverfew for borders, on account of colors; sweet allys- 

 sum, balsams, foliage plants (colors), tulips, hollyhocks, peonies, lo- 

 belia, portulacca and poppies. They are planted without regard to 

 scientific combination, but very much as wild flowers grow on the 

 prairies or in the woods, considerably mixed. 



The writer has never seen a flower, either wild or cultivated, that 

 was not handsome; nor have I, in a long life, seen a person who loves 

 flowers that was a bad person. Of late years I have derived more 

 real pleasure and happiness from the cultivation of a few old-fash- 

 ioned flowers than many a man with his millions. 



