NOTICES. 395 



favorite, the exemption was boasted of as an act of unmerited condescension. 

 Now, you may travel through New England, and over a much broader space, 

 and you will scarcely see a farm-house or a cottage, that is not embellished 

 with a plat, or a border, of flowers, and probably a rose or a honey-suckle 

 climbing up the door-posts or window-frames. In the garden you will see a 

 bed of pinks or marigolds, and many other of the old-fashioned sorts, such, 

 I mean, as were, by a peculiar act of grace, in former years, permitted to grow 

 in the garden, undisturbed by any attempt at cultivation. In my rambles 

 about the county of Middlesex (as one of a committee of the Agricultural 

 Society, to inspect farms and to report on the condition and progress of agri- 

 culture,) I have been agreeably surprized to see what changes a few years 

 have produced. It is not uncommon to meet with a farmer, proud, as he should 

 be, of the fine appearance of his cultivated acres, speaking with apparent 

 pleasure of some new flower in his garden, or of the fine fragrance and beau- 

 tiful colors of an old one, and commenting on the native country and habits 

 and various attractive qualities of each. I have no doubt that many farmers 

 in the country, who once thought it mere idleness to cultivate a flower, may 

 be seen, after a hard day's work, walking or reclining in a flower-garden, 

 mentally enjoying, and perhaps vocally enunciating, the sentiment, if not the 

 language, of a favorite poet : 



" If God hath made this world so fair, 



Where sin and death abound, 

 How beautiful, beyond compare, 



Will Paradise be found ! 



Now, my dear sir, do you not think that some part of this change is ^rour 

 work ? Modesty may forbid you to put in a claim for the credit of the im- 

 provement ; but there are thousands who will acknowledge their indebtedness 

 to your Book of Flowers for the impulse which has produced it ; for the skill 

 which has enabled them to succeed in cultivation ; for incentives to the im- 

 provement of intellectual powers ; for new and innocent modes of recreation ; 

 and for motives to pursue the holiest of all studies, veneration of the power, 

 admiration of the skill, devotion to the love of that incomprehensible Being, 

 whose attributes are manifested scarcely more in the position and motion of 

 Buns and systems, than in the beauty and fragrance of the violet and the lily. 



" Were I, God, in churchless lands remaining, 

 Far from all voice of teachers and divines, 

 My soul would find, in flowers of thy ordaining, 

 Priests, sermons, shrines." 



You must feel happy, my dear sir, in the consciousness of having done so 

 much to promote the innocent enjoyment of others, and to develop the sources 

 and the means of pure and rational recreation. I trust that the new edition 

 of your book will not only add to your own satisfaction, but will secure the 

 renewed thanks and regards of a grateful and enlightened public. 



Respectfully and sincerely your friend, 



JOSEPH T. BUCKINGHAM. 



