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filled with beautiful trees or shrubs to which you may retire 

 from the turmoil of the crowded city, and among whose 

 sylvan shades you take your daily walk — making them your 

 companions and friends — come hither often with branch, or 

 flower, or berry, to inspire the same delight in others. Or 

 if you are only the owner of a little spot of ground, filled 

 with the choicest flowers — whose constant nurture has 

 occupied the moments snatched from life's busy scenes, 

 and whose opening blossoms are daily eloquent with 

 lessons of grace and loveliness — do not refuse to offer them 

 here as tokens of your affection and triumphs of your art. 

 And if neither tree or flower or fruit can yet claim your 

 care, will not the recollection of youth's golden hours, when 

 gathering the first snowdrop of spring, or the last aster of 

 autumn, touch, as with a vibrating chord, that latent love 

 for nature, which few do not possess, awaken aspirations 

 for things beautiful, and bring you into sympathy with the 

 objects of our association. 



Welcome then to us be this Temple of Flora. Here come 

 and bring your lovely flowers, gathered, it may be, fresh 

 from the dewy fields and pastures, or plucked in early morn 

 in the cultivated border — the choicest offerings of your 

 tasteful care — arranged in innumerable forms and sparkling 

 with colors of every hue. From these walls may ever 

 irradiate that spirit of beauty which shall not only draw 

 within your extending circle every lover of Nature or Art, 

 but whose glorious eff'ulgence shall not be dimmed until 

 the whole world becomes a garden. 



