52 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



EDUCATION IN FLOWERS. 

 By Mrs. Helen B. C. Beedy, Farmington. 



Education begins, we know not wliere — and ends — not here. 

 Whatever stimulates the mind to activity, producing abiding results, 

 educates. Education in flowers begins with the first impulse of love 

 stirred in the heart in admiration of their brightness and beauty ; if 

 cherished and cultivated it pervades and happifies the entire nature,, 

 broadening and enlightening, until beneath the shadow of the "tree 

 of life" is begun the study of that heavenly fruit which is yielded 

 every month, "the leaves of which are lor the healing of the 

 nations." That the tendency of the study of flowers is for good 

 and only good, needs not to be proven to an audience like this. 

 Flowers with all their beauty and wonderful myster}' seem to have 

 been given us as a pastime to help over the rough hard places in this- 

 work-a-day world, for we have all repeated from childhood, 



"God might have made the earth bring forth 

 Enough for great and small, 

 Tlie oak tree and the cedar tree, 

 Aud not a flower at all." 



It seems fitting that a pomological societ}', a societ}' devoted to 

 the stud}' of fruit should also turn its attention to flowers, for the 

 fruit is only a part of the flower brought to perfection. Indeed 

 there can be no scientific stud}' of fruit that does not necessitate first 

 the study of the entire plant. It is presumable that your education 

 in flowers is well begun and each spring time brings to you new joys 

 in her bursting flowers. Occasionally we meet one like Peter Bell 

 into whose heart nature could never find the way. To whom 



"A primrose by a river's brim 

 A yellow primrose wa-5 to him, 

 And it was notliing more." 



Another who boasts that he cannot distinguish the geranium from 

 the chrysanthemum who would think you indiflferent at least should 

 you fail to specify among his flocks which are South- downs and 

 which are Merinos. Flowers are flowers, sheep are sheep, and there 

 is a peculiar pleasure in being able to call them all by their specific 

 names. Your education in flowers cannot be complete so long as 

 there blossoms beneath your feet a single flower with whose name 

 and habits you are unfamiliar. Many confine their study to window 

 gardening which affords one of the greatest delights of the home- 



