2ist February, A. D. 1895. 



ESSAY 



BY 



JOSEPH JACKSON. 



Theme: — Our Native Plants and Flowers. 



If the constantly increasing number of books, both technical and 

 popular, which deal with plants and plant-life, is any sigu of the in- 

 terest in native floras, then there never was a time in the world's 

 history when this interest was so widely spread or was more intelligent. 



The great number of journals devoted to botanical and kindred in- 

 vestigations, the increasing number of public botanic gardens and 

 private collections, the establishment of numerous agricultural schools 

 and agricultural experiment stations over the civilized world, testify 

 to the vast economic importance attached to the study of plants. 

 Some departments of this study, as e. ^., that of the diseases of 

 plants, have had an extraordinary development during the past few 

 years. As most of our native plants, with the exception of trees and 

 grasses, have little economic value, the interest that centers in them is 

 one arising from sentiment rather than from any other consideration. 

 And it will be admitted freely, I thiuk, that sentiment is a very pow- 

 erful factor in influencing conduct. 



The child wanders through the lush grass in the meadows and fields 

 and fills its hands with the flowers of buttercup and daisy, or, in earlier 

 springtime, while the grass is yet upspringing, revels among broad 

 blue spaces of the bii-d-foot violet, and lays in its memory the founda- 

 tions of those palimpsests whose deciphering will be one of the 

 pleasures of later years. Among the pleasing memories of our early 

 years, when life is so full of wonders and the days and the years so 

 full of life, there are few more pleasing recollections than those of 

 the scenes which in some way are connected with the plants and 

 flowers that have left so deep an impression on our memories. 



