1891.] ESSAYS. 139 



coiitiimou.sly than in planting the seeds and watching their 

 growth and the beautiful blossoms and fruit which they produce? 

 As the child becomes a man, will he ever lose a love for the 

 beautiful pictures which the garden places before him, and 

 which are so great in number, and varied that a life-time is far 

 too short a time in which to view them all? With a Bryant to 

 sing of " The Planting of the Apple-tree," a Lowell to write an 

 ode to the dandelion, and a Whittier and Longfellow to charm 

 us with their inspirations drawn from the flowers, and a Mary 

 Dodge to remind us of beautiful "Blossom-time" when the 

 flowers are " wreathed on every bough and branch, or falling 

 down in showers," we give the influence of poetry, the 

 American poetry of horticulture to the world. 



Not remotely connected with our literature, is the thouo-ht 

 that many of our greatest minds occupied perhaps in far differ- 

 ent business for the most part, have shown themselves lovers 

 of horticulture. Not unlike Luther who always kept a flower 

 in a glass upon his writing table, and when waging his great 

 public controversy with Eckius, kept a flower in his hand, was 

 the late George Bancroft. Historian that he was, and enijao-ed 

 also in public life, one can never think of him but that he 

 associates him with his roses at Newport. Nor can we think of 

 the sermons of a Beecher, without remembering his love of the 

 wild-flowers and particularly the trailing Arbutus. 



Many of our greatest public men, like Washington, have 

 taken time to plant the ornamental trees, or look after the floral 

 adornments of their homes. 



With North America containing 8,073,000 square miles and 

 South America with its 7,316,000 square miles, Columbus 

 bequeathed a garden large enough to satisfy the rapacious 

 yearnings of the Eastern World. Within its limits, are found 

 metals and minerals valuable enough to recompense its gardeners, 

 and native flowers and fruits in sufficient abundance for the 

 thousands of emigrants to our lands. How, in the exposition 

 so soon to take place, can we show to the world, what benefits 

 we have conferred upon her horticulture? Shall we show her 

 simply our herbariums and samples of fruits and flowers, with- 



