LECTUKE BY HON. MARSHALL P. WILDER. 191 



Fruits and flowers have too often been considered only as tlie 

 luxuries of life, — but the more we use them, the more we are 

 associated with them, the nearer shall we approach a refined and 

 healthy temperament, both of body and of mind. It is therefore 

 our duty to develop these wonderful resources of nature, and to 

 increase and improve them to their utmost extent. No employ- 

 ment is more consonant with the refinement and happiness of a 

 rational being ; none better calculated to develop the purest senti- 

 ments of our moral nature. " They are," said Mr. Webster, " a 

 constant field where all sexes and ages, and every degree of taste 

 and refinement may find opportunity for gratification." The more 

 I study the laws of vegetable physiology, and the more I am 

 brought into communion with Nature, in her bright and fascinating 

 moods, the more am I filled with gratitude to the Giver of all 

 good that He gave me a love for fruits and flowers, and cast my 

 lot where I might enjoy the privileges and pleasures of rural life, 

 and have sweet intercourse with these lovely objects of creation. 

 And who that has ever cooperated with Nature in her secret handi- 

 work, does not look with wonder and admiration on the infinitude 

 of beauty and perfection in these creations of the Hand Divine, — 

 the tiny bud encased in coats of mail, so that the rude blasts may 

 not visit it too roughly ; the enamelled blossom unfolding her vir- 

 gin bosom to the warm embrace of vernal air, bespangling the 

 orchard with starry spray scarcely less beautiful than the glitter- 

 ing host above, dancing in rainbow hues, and flinging on the 

 breeze a fragrance richer than that of Ceylon's Isles ; sweet har- 

 binger of bountiful harvest ! — the luscious fruits, God's best gift 

 to man, save lovely woman! — the velvet peach, mantled with 

 beauty's softest blush, and vying with the oriency of the morning ; 

 — the delicious plum, veiled with silvery bloom, over robes of 

 azure, purple, or cloth of vegetable gold ; — the royal grape, the 

 brilliant cherry, the melting pear, and the burnished apple, tempt- 

 ing human taste from the mother of our race to her last fair 

 , daughter ? But what pencil can sketch the changing hues, the 

 varied magnificence and glory when Pomona pours from her over- ' 

 flowing lap the varied treasures of the ripening year ? These, all 

 these, are original designs, such as the oldest masters could only 

 imitate. Here are creations originally pronounced very good. 

 Here are sources of inexhaustible pleasure ; beauties which fade 



