32 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1900. 



that, in some shape or form, the star is present as a witness of 

 the better things that are coming, and that, though the night he 

 dark, yet there is light shining somewhere ; and the beauty of 

 it is that the light will grow stronger and stronger upon our 

 lives if we look for its coming. 



All flowers have their unconscious ministry — a blessed min- 

 istry ; they give us our childhood back again under some very 

 real conditions. We say that the child has the faculty of imag- 

 ination in much stronger activity than at any other time in life. 

 Now, I rather dissent from that statement as sweeping and 

 general ; yet there is some measure of truth in it. You give a 

 child a picture-book and the imagination of the child at once 

 invests everyone of those pictures with a large measure of 

 reality. The drama imprinted on the page becomes a real scene 

 of activity to the mind of the child, and the child lives in the 

 thoughts that are presented by the picture-book. Now, the 

 flower-lover has precisely that same privilege, and I suppose 

 that in a little while most of us will feel its power. The daily 

 mails will be bringing to us the catalogues, in a week or two, 

 and if you have any of the passion for flowers that I have, you 

 will sit around the fireside at night-time and examine the cata- 

 logues one after another, and will create, if you are wise, a 

 mimic garden in which the beauties which are brought to your 

 mind will become realities to everyone of you. Why, I think 

 we are better in that respect than even children ; the children 

 have simply imagination, we have imagination and knowledge 

 as well ; and so our picture garden, built by the fireside in 

 winter-time, becomes more real to us than anything that the 

 child can know. Try it and then see how good it is to us. 

 There are no weeds that trouble us, no blight that annoys, no 

 insects that destroy; we have an ideal garden there. If your 

 experience is like mine, then to you your picture garden will be 

 better than the reality. 



I have looked over some catalogues, especially John Lewis 

 Chi Ids', and I am quite sure the pictures are better than the 

 flowers. I have tried them many and many a time, and I give 

 a preference to the pictures nearly every time. There is hardly 



