30 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1900. 



all the time I was with him. He had discovered that the early 

 frost of the fall had killed almost all the new wood of his azalea 

 plants. They had been the pride of his heart for years and they 

 had been very beautiful indeed in their prime. He had left 

 them out just one frosty night ; had forgotten them or neglected 

 them, because he thought it wouldn't freeze hard, and he had 

 neglected to take them into the house, and a failure of bloom for 

 the whole }'ear was the penalty he paid for just that one act of 

 forgetfulness. 



We learn just one thing; that is to say, through the culture 

 of flowers we get near to the sacred heart of Nature, and know 

 that she will accept no excuses for our indolence, and that she 

 exacts penalties which we cannot escape if we neglect to obey 

 her laws and work in harmony with them. Do what you are 

 bidden by this universal power, and Nature is kind to us with 

 more than a mother's power, kind with a mother's kindness as 

 she sfives us back a hundred-fold for all things we do for her. 



Can you tell me why it is, or if you have thought why it is, 

 that people love flowers? Now, I like to find out the reason of 

 things and satisfy myself as well as I am able, to discover 

 that secret, and to do so I had to examine the elements of man's 

 moral nature, and from a somewhat large acquaintance with men 

 and women, I found that they were, everyone of them, so far as 

 my acquaintance goes, prone to find fault. I never yet, in all 

 my life, found anyone who was perfectly satisfied with every- 

 thing. No matter how beautiful a thing may be, and there are 

 a great many beautiful things in this world, after the first flush of 

 pleasure passes away from the face and the first gleam of glad- 

 ness fades from the eye, they begin to turn about the thing you 

 gave them, no matter how fair it may be, to see if they cannot 

 find some fault with it, some flaw, some blemish in it. Nearly 

 everybody will do that ; no matter what you give them, you will 

 immediately see that after they have feasted their eyes upon the 

 surface beauties, they then begin to look for imperfections. I 

 do not understand why they should do it, because they, them- 

 selves, are all imperfect — imperfection is one of the conditions 

 of human nature ; yet, they, though not being perfect men and 



