56 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



words, there wasn't a woman amongst them but that went home to 

 forage over her own attic in search of an old, disabled head-board of 

 oak or cherry wood, to oil and polish for a plant shelf. 



These same live floricultural papers, full of breez}' instruction, 

 opened the e3'es of the Quint children to the possibilities coming from 

 odd, beautiful growths in their father's woods — moss-grown old 

 knolls, richly stained half circle shelves of fungus formation, queer 

 knots and quirls of deformed limbs and the twisting, coiling stems 

 of the bitter-sweet vine. In the search for such growths, they woke 

 to new interests in the fields and woods. 



An out-door flower garden followed naturally and readily in the 

 wake of Edith's house plants. Geraniums need good bedding through 

 the summer months, drooping coleus and roses quickly take on leaves 

 and hardiness when given a foothold in out-door soil, and they got it 

 and ihey kept it in the Quint garden. Sods of witch grass were first 

 broken in little patches, here and there, just to make room for the 

 budding annual or brown bulb some friend had given, but not long 

 was it before the sods between the patches were upturned, the soil 

 cleared of grass roots and a goodly part of the wide old garden laid 

 out in pretty flower beds with rows of thrifty fruit canes and vines, 

 of which the boj's had learned and been filled with ambition to raise, 

 from careful reading of the health}' journals that now came into 

 their home. The dimes and quarters which, doubtless, would have 

 been exchanged for tobacco, had the Quint boys, when a little older, 

 followed their father's example, were spent for choice varieties of 

 fruits ; and which, think you, was the wiser investment? 



Years ago, we of the "Fifth Reader class" used to stand in a 

 long row on the dingy boards of the school-room floor and repeat in 

 concert, with more force than eloquence, Mary Howitt's beautiful 

 poem : 



"God might have bade the earth bring forth 

 Enough for great and small, 

 The oak-tree and the cedar-tree, 

 Without a flower at all." 



Yes, God might, but glad and grateful are we that our Creator 

 saw fit to give us, and so lavishly, beautiful flowers. With their 

 help we may make our homes so full of cheeriness that the children 

 will not be tempted from them b\' outside impure influences. An}' 

 resource within our reach that will help develop purity of thought, 

 and recognition and love for God's beautiful creations in the hearts 



