FLORICULTURE OF SAN FRANCISCO PAST AND PRESENT. 121 



the plants raised under such difficulties, when every gallon of water used 

 to irrigate them was very costly. 



A magazine of May 8, 1873, contained the following by E. S. Carr, 

 Professor of Agriculture at the State University: "Botany ought to be 

 one of the daily studies in all our common schools. Our city parks 

 should be so planned as to furnish their schools with essential objects 

 of instruction, and every country schoolhouse ought to have its shrub- 

 bery and its garden." 



The kindergartens of to-day tend in every possible manner to edu- 

 cate the child by pleasant means. On the covers of his little books are- 

 flowers as natural as possible. After being blindfolded, he is asked to 

 designate the real flower by its perfume. In playing with colored silks 

 and papers, he learns the colors of the rainbow. Potted plants decorate 

 the window-sills, and his playground is on grass, under green trees and 

 shrubs. From his childhood up, his path to education is "strewn with 

 flowers" as well as with thorns. 



There were no kindergartens for the children of California forty 

 years ago. The school-grounds were usually without shrubbery. On 

 leaving Swett's old school for the brick building on Bush and Stockton 

 Streets, they welcomed with joy the new Denman. The little green 

 garden at its entrance was a source of great pride to them. 



The few illustrated books they owned were loaned and read, and 

 reread, until, by seeing the picture, they could tell its story. They used 

 to lie awake at night, and, by candle-light, study the flowers on the 

 wall-papers of their homes. How large those flowers were, how gay 

 their colors, how they twined themselves in and around each other, 

 how some of them contained faces, how they all merged into a dis- 

 orderly mass of green, red, and pink, as the children fell off to sleep ? 

 How in the morning by the sunlight they displayed the defects invisible 

 by candle-light! How quickly those pioneer children got dressed and 

 fled to the fields for a real, live, natural bouquet of the wild mustard 

 flowers ! Platt's Hall (where, then, school exhibitions were held) was 

 not decorated with plants and flowers as halls of to-day are beautified. 



The home-made bouquet of early days was not a model of artistic 

 beauty. A pointed stick, eight or ten inches long, was smoothly whit- 

 tled; The stick and a ball of twine were taken to the simple garden. 

 Beginning at the pointed end of the stick, the choicest red and pink 

 roses were securely fastened. It was turned around and around, the 

 twine following, carrying in its coils gilly-flower, mourning-brides, and 

 marigolds. There were few white and no blue flowers or green border. 

 When finished the lower end of the stick was cut off. So was the 

 twine, if any was left. This tall, cone-shaped bouquet, the colors of 

 which were at war with one another, was placed in a celery glass. 



