72 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1896. 



all that can be done for horticulture when you confine your efforts to 

 your wonderfully lieautiful exhibitions, but extend your work until 

 wherever in this city the sun's rays fall upon a spot of ground uncul- 

 tivated and suitable for plants, they shall be found growing, filling the 

 air with fragrance in summer, and covering unsightly places with 

 verdure for many months in the year. 



In crowded neighborhoods idleness is liand in hand with brutality. 

 Do we not believe that the youth Avho will care for flowers will be 

 unconsciously refined, and will learn that in leisure moments there is 

 something interesting to do? 



One worthy example in a neighborhood will often renovate it. 

 Matthew Arnold wrote that " no one looks on, seeing his neighbor 

 mending without asking himself if he cannot mend in the same way." 



It is often alleged that the busy man or woman has not time for 

 gardening ; or that those of limited means cannot afford the cost of 

 seeds and plants. Let me describe a garden that has interested me 

 to refute both of the objections given above. The owner has taken 

 at the end of his yard a plat of ground about 10 feet by 80. Instead 

 of dividing into beds for the sake of making an ornamental display 

 of plants, he has held before him the ideal of raising flowers to enjoy, 

 and to cut for his family and friends. The space allotted to the 

 flowers is simply divided into beds by narrow paths for the sake of 

 convenience. The seeds are planted in drills, leaving space between 

 each drill wide enough to admit a small hoe. This enables weeding 

 to be done by hoeing between the drills, so that seldom is my informant 

 compelled to get down on the ground for that purpose, which, it must 

 be confessed, is fatiguing work. His expenditure for seeds for that 

 garden does not exceed five dollars a year. The time he has given to 

 the garden between the middle of April and the first of September is 

 fifty hours. In that number is not included the time devoted to the 

 cutting of the flowers or tying up plants, for that is usually considered 

 pleasant. It is what is counted as hard work that is included in the 

 time given. There are few persons who can assert that they have 

 not spent that number of hours in ways that have brought no lasting 

 results, either of healthful pleasure or mental benefit. One small plat 

 4 feet by 12 was devoted to raising single poppies. Along the 

 borders of the bed were placed stakes 16 inches in height with a nail 

 in the top of each, by means of which a coarse wire netting was held 

 in place over the bed, through the meshes of it the poppies came up 

 and were held in place. As the time for them to cease blooming drew 

 near, nasturtiums were transi^lanted to the borders of the bed, so that 



