FLOWERS 



2225 



FLOWERS 



was transferred to special workers. They, in 

 their turn, having time and the desire to experi- 

 ment and to study, found it possible to create 

 new forms of life by aiding Mother Nature in 

 her work and hastening her processes. The 

 science of raising plants and producing new 

 and improved forms of life has become a life 

 work with many men (see BURBANK, LUTHER). 

 The raising of plants for commercial pur- 

 poses has grown into an important industry. 

 Florists, everywhere, supply flowers to those 

 city people who have neither the time, the 

 place nor the means to grow them; and to 



CHILDREN SHOULD DELIGHT IN FLOWER 

 CULTURE 



those who wish to pay the price, they furnish 

 rare plants, or flowers out of season, which 

 must be carefully grown under glass. There 

 are over 7,400 florists' establishments in the 

 United States, each producing at least $250 

 worth of flowers a year. The entire output 

 for a year is valued at about $35,000,000; al- 

 most 115,000,000 square feet of land are under 

 glass. In all the larger Canadian cities, espe- 

 cially in the eastern provinces, there are estab- 

 lishments of a similar character. 



Uses of Flowers. Flowers are not only used 

 to make home sites more beautiful, but they 

 are used for interior decoration, as well. They 

 bring God's beautiful out-of-doors within; they 

 bring comfort and kind thoughts; they have 

 a language for the bride in her wedding gar- 

 ments, and they speak to those bereft of loved 

 140 



ones. As Percival tells us, in The Language 

 of Flowers: ; 



In Eastern lands they talk in flowers, 



And they tell In a garland their loves and cares ; 



Each blossom that blooms In their garden bowers, 

 On its leaves a mystic language bears. 



Flowers in Medicine. As the roots, leaves 

 and seeds of many plants are used in medicine, 

 so, too, are a number of flowers used to bring 

 practical relief to the suffering. The flowers of 

 the American linden, or basswood, are collected 

 in May or June, carefully dried in the shade 

 and then sold for about thirty-five cents a 

 pound. A drink brewed from those flowers is 

 used as a remedy for headaches and indiges- 

 tion, and for breaking up colds. 



The corolla-leaves of flowers of the coarse 

 weed mullein, collected when nearly open and 

 then dried, are used to relieve coughs, catarrh 

 and diarrheal complaints. The wholesale price 

 of mullein flowers is listed at seventy to eighty 

 cents a pound. 



Both flowers and fruit of the elder are used 

 medicinally. The flowers, if collected when 

 fully open and then quickly dried, contain 

 properties which make them valuable. They 

 are used to produce perspiration and for poul- 

 tices and ointments in treating rheumatism, 

 sores, burns, etc. Elder flowers bring about 

 eighteen to twenty cents a pound. 



Flowers in Perfumes. All plants produce 

 within themselves some special kind of oil 

 which gives forth an odor either pleasing or 

 unpleasant. The use of such oils is to provide 

 the -blossoms with those fragrances or scents 

 which attract the creatures which are neces- 

 sary to the plant's existence (see BOTANY, sub- 

 head Interesting and Curious Plants) . Joubert, 

 in Thoughts, expresses the beautiful sentiment 

 that "The odors of flowers are their souls." 

 To preserve those "souls" a little longer, and 

 to bring to us those fragrances which we love 

 when we cannot have the flowers themselves, 

 the great industry of preparing perfumery from 

 flowers has been established. 



When we look into the faces of flowers and 

 think of their life histories from seed to seed 

 lives affected by heredity and environment 

 just as are eur own lives we can understand 

 that sentence from Christina G. Rossetti's Con- 

 sider the Lilies of the Field: 



Flowers preach to us if we will hear. 



Suggestions for a Flower Garden. The 

 pleasure and satisfaction derived from the 

 planting and rearing of beautiful, fragrant flow- 

 ers more than offset the sacrifice of time and 



