igth February, A. D. 1891. 



ESSAY 



JOSEPH JACKSON, Principal of Woodland-street 



School. 



Theme: — Native Plants (ind Fl outers. 



Years ago we used to read, mark, learn, if we did not 

 inwardly digest, in one of our school reading-books a little piece 

 by Miss Roberts, " The Voice of the Grass," the mellow cadence 

 of which is merely a type of the multitudinous voices of the 

 native plants which are everywhere about us, but crowded from 

 the paths of cultivation. While the vital interest of this Society 

 lies in the cultivation of an exotic flora of a?sthetic value, or of 

 plants which have some economic value, the fact that such 

 plants are native somewhere while our own are exotics else- 

 where, should tend to prevent the native flora from becoming a 

 matter of indiff*erence . If we cannot rise to the feelings of 

 Tennyson in " Flower in the Crannied Wall," we do not wish to 

 sink to the depth of unsentimentality of Peter Bell, when 



" A primrose by the river's brim 

 A yellow primrose was to him, 

 And it was nothing more." 



Somewhere between these two extremes we can find a place 

 in which we can take a rational interest in the common every-day 

 flora that surrounds us — an interest that will contribute to our 

 pleasure and our intellectual profit. 



Situated as we are, about half-way between the Equator and 

 the North Pole, in one of the most highly favored latitudes, it 

 is not strange that our flora should be a varied one, partaking of 

 both a northern and a southern character, containing species of 



