STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 403 



My own pleasure is not all, for mine is by no means diminished, if 

 others, strangers and neighbors, derive pleasure by seeing them. 



During the past years I have had ladies call and personally thank 

 me for the pleasure they have derived from viewing them as they 

 passed. I have frequently seen people passing, suddenly stop, and use 

 such expressions as "Beautiful!" "Ain't they handsome!" and 

 others similar, and I plead guilty to a little vanit}' — if that is the best 

 name — that others are pleased at the little I have done; it adds greatly 

 to my own pleasure. Nothing has, however, given more pleasure than 

 to see a class of persons having a taste for flowers but not the means 

 of obtaining them come round to view mine, I allude to nurses in 

 charge of little ones in their little carriages; and I have seen the past 

 summer at one time five of this class apparentl}- deriving pleasure 

 from seeing the flowers. 



I have a little neighbor, one of the finest children I ever saw, just 

 able to walk and talk, who loves flowers as well as I do, and when he 

 visits me he always gets a few for himself and a few more to take to 

 his mamma, and with the sweetest smile I ever saw on the face of a 

 child, the " thank you " he never forgets to return is to me the high- 

 est compensation that could be returned. I love that child, and all 

 others that love flowers. 



Who can measure the happiness and pleasure, not to mention the 

 advantages to the health, to the poor and sick, who are supplied by 

 the Flower Missions! 



I am sure they are great, and hope such missions may be extended 

 to every town and village in the land where none now exist, even if 

 none others than wild flowers can be had. I have quite a number of 

 very pleasant notes from friends to whom I had sent flowers when 

 sick, and from some who were not sick, which are very gratifying. So 

 great do I consider the refining, and, if you please, the Christianizing 

 influence of flowers, that I would have all school children taught how 

 to grow them; and I would have a bed in the yard of every school- 

 house, at the cross-roads, in the village and city, as well as in the yard 

 of every prison and reformatory institution in the land where the un- 

 fortunate are kept for the safety of society; and in every park where 

 people go for pleasure; and in every cemetery where the remains of 

 dear ones are deposited. Some of the latter in the East are the most 

 beautiful places I have ever seen, and I hope the custom will become 

 general. 



At the present time, the only apparent use of life seems to be to 

 obtain great wealth — a reasonable amount does not satisfy, and in 



