10 



FLORAL DEPARTMENT. 



The car of time has rolled round again to our door, asking 

 our report for eighteen eighty-three. And we pause as we 

 are asked " What shall it be ? " It is an old maxim " To 

 gather up the good and throw the bad away," but those 

 of us who remember our school-days know our bad marks 

 were always sure to be on our reports. But we have little to 

 throw away ! Let us look again, we have nothing to throw 

 away ! If in an}^ department one article is not as nice as 

 another, shall we cast it aside ? Has it no lesson ? And so 

 we find in the Floral Department, if one plant is not as 

 svmmetrical as another, its foliage not as luxuriant, and its 

 appearance as healthy, we are led to inquire the manner of 

 treatment, and thus learn, often, it was not because one seed 

 was more valuable than another, but because it was planted in 

 different soil, received .more or less sunlight, watered fre- 

 quently or at intervals. And swiftly flashes across our minds 

 the oft-repeated remark we listened to last Summer : " What 

 will you have for the Floral Department this dry season '? " 

 The answer has been : " We shall see." And what do we 

 see? No masterpiece from Mr. Phillipps' greenhouse, of 

 which we have always been so proud, because, tve judge, the 

 heart of the artist was sorrowful, and he would not bring us 

 his soul picture, while sickness prevented the usual aid of 

 Miss Lydia T. Chandler ; but we can say the work of others 



