366 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



There are many other flowers which the amateur would introduce into his 

 garden, but I have referred to a few only of the mo.'st beautiful merely to show 

 the beginuer that his labor will be rewarded, even in the first season, in this 

 delightful work. 



In what I have said of fruit and vegetable gardens, as well as of flowers, 

 my aim has been not so much to show how they can be produced as to excite 

 in the mind of the reader a taste, desire, and love for the occupation. "When 

 Mr. Colman was abroad on his agricultural tour he wrote : 



"I have s.iid and written a great deal to my countrymen about the cultiration of flowers, 

 ornamental gardening, and rural embellishments, and I would read them a homily on the 

 subject every day of every remaining year of my life if I thought it would induce them to 

 make this a matter of attention and care. When a man asks me what is the use of shrubs 

 and plants, my first impulse is always to look under his hat and see the length of his ears. 

 I am heartily sick of measuring everything by a standard of utility and profit, and heartily 

 do I pity the mau \vho can see no good in life but iu pecuniary gain, or in the mere animal 

 indulgences of eating and drinking." 



In no other way can so much real beauty be created, so much that will 

 render home healthi'al and attractive, that will awaken iu the mind cheerful 

 emotions, and fix the memories of early life so indelibly upon the heart, as the 

 cultivation of fruits and flowers about our dwellings. Downing says : " The 

 cottage in the country too rarely conveys the ideas of comfort and happiness 

 which Ave wish to attach to such a habitation, and chiefly because it stands 

 bleak, solitary, and exposed to every ray of our summer sun. IIow diff'erent 

 such edifices, however humble, become when the porch is overhung with climb- 

 ing plants, when the blushing rosebud peeps iu at the window, or the ripe 

 purple clusters of the grape hang down about the eaves. And with very little 

 care or expense all these charms may be added to almost every house in our 

 towns and villages." The little boys and girls of the family may do much to 

 work this change, if the desire exists in their hearts, and to awaken such a 

 desire is the object of this paper. 



HOUSE PLANTS. 



BY RUTH HALL, OF CHICAGO, ILLI.\OIS. 



"Encourage the beautiful ; the useful encourages itself." 



The cultivation of house plants has a refining and quieting influence on 

 families where they arc grown ; they adorn the house as nothing else can, and 

 give to the cheapest furniture an air of elegance which no other ornament can 

 impart. And the influence of flowers is not confined to the hotise or household 

 where they are cultivated : they are a most graceful form of charity to the 

 poor passer-by who has no means of gratifying his taste for the beautiful. To 

 him blooming flowers, surrounded by their leaves of diff'erent shapes and shades, 

 even when only seen at a distance, through a parlor window, give a positive 

 pleasure which those more accustomed to such gratifications can scarcely ap- 

 preciate. It is impossible to overestimate the effect of youthful association 

 and daily companionship with such exquisite shape and coloring, which foster 

 in the minds of children a taste for simple and natural forms of amusement and 

 recreation. 



Henry Ward Beecher declares that he has always found house plants an 

 infallible test in selecting acquaintances, neatness, cleanliness, and innumerable 



