1879] REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 45 



"He who owns a gardening spade 



" Should be able to dig the depth of its blade. 



" He who owns a gardening rake 



" Should know what to leave and what to take. 



" He who owns a gardening hoe 



" Must be sure how he means his strokes to go. 



" While to shift a pot, or annex what you can 



" A trowel's the tool for child, woman, or man. 



" But he who owns a gardening fork 



" May make it do all the other tools' work. 



" 'Twas the bird that sits in the Medlar tree 



'• Who sang these gardening songs to me." 



Several Floral Exhibitions have been held, during the past 

 year, that might well have been nipped in the bud. After the 

 reporters for the press had prepared an exact and elaborate de- 

 scription of the crowns, crosses, broken columns, etc., etc., the 

 remains of the deceased would be viewed, in their turn, and as 

 a necessary portion of the show, by an indiscriminate throng, 

 whose morbid curiosity must be appeased like any other insa- 

 tiate appetite. The dictates of good taste, like the restraints of 

 a wise frugality, are disregarded in this ostentatious rivalry 

 upon the verge of an open grave. Of course, little heed is paid 

 to the fitness of things, and a man who could not tell one flower 

 from another, while living, is overwhelmed, in his coffin, by a 

 profusion as heterogeneous as senseless. The laurel-wreath 

 might well bind the brows of our illustrious Soldier when he, 

 but yesterday as it were, once more stepped foot upon his na- 

 tive land. 



" Palmam qui meruit fer at.''' 



But now, as erst, the value of a tribute lies in the rarity of 

 its bestowal and the virtues of the recipient. Death works no 

 miracle; howsoever much it may alleviate judgment: 



" Be, to his faults, a little blind ! 

 " Be, to his virtues, very kind." 



But forget not, even in the blindness of friendship, as you 

 render some things unto Caesar, to reserve his own for God ! 



