140 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



poppy of sleep, the ladies' slipper, honeysuckle, dewdrop, 

 harebell, tulip, marigold, dandelion, hollyhock, jessamine, 

 hyacinth, clover, buttercup, daisy, — all suggest at least, if 

 we turn to their etymologies, how warm and close about the 

 human heart flowers have always lain. They have moral 

 qualities, and illustrate psychological characteristics, brighten 

 the earth and therefore the heart of man. Their fragrance 

 suggests incense, the miracle of their relations to birds and in- 

 sects and their perfumes are the creators of special sentiments, 

 and the best of all language of some and reflections of others. 

 The seer who plucked the flower from the crannied wall real- 

 ized that, could he but know what it was, root and all, leaf 

 and all, he would know what God and man were. While the 

 human clodhopper is he for whom, as for Peter Bell, the 

 cowslip by the river's brim, a yellow cowslip is to him, and 

 it is nothing more. The great kindergarten apostle lay one 

 day, he knew not how long, gazing into the calyx of a yellow 

 flower with black spots, and arose from his hypnotism by it 

 a new man. Flower lore reflects all this childish stage, and 

 teaches us how to begin instruction in this field, rather than, 

 as is often done, to dull the apprehension and spontaneous 

 childish interest by the technical methods and names of 

 adult botany. For the child the trees literally talk, as their 

 leaves murmur in the wind. They hear and repeat the words 

 by which they call the birds to alight in them, eat their fruit, 

 build their nests in them, sing, scold, invite them to climb 

 to their branches, etc. It is painfully cruel to trim trees or 

 shrubs, and often punishment to flowers to pluck them, and 

 murder to pull them up. All this animism is a placenta by 

 which nascent interest in nature is nourished and stimulated 

 to grow toward maturity. While great care to furnish abun- 

 dant pabulum in this direction should be taken, interference 

 is mutilation of the budding soul. 



So, too, with animals. The child's soul sees no chasm 

 between pets and other human beings. The dog, cat, horse, 

 and often all the rest of the animals within its ken, perceive, 

 feel and think as the child does ; are responsive to all its in- 

 tentions and endeavors, and speak a language essentially 

 different, but sometimes with plenty of human words in it ; 

 have souls that go to the animal if not to the human heaven j 



