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found in other flowers with us. But if we seek to encourage 

 flower-growing, we must set up the like standard in the case 

 of other plants, and welcome all laudable competition that 

 tends to bring us up to it. There is no reason why our people 

 should not be as anxious to show fine, perfect Asters, Phloxes, 

 and Gilliflowers, as Dahlias ; and we suspect a very little 

 stimulus, if in the right direction, would suffice to wake them 

 to this kind of enterprise. 



Perhaps our worthy Essex farmers are not yet wholly rid of 

 the idea that raising flowers is "women's work." So it is; 

 but not the less that of men, by any means. Woman shines 

 in every work of benevolence, but man honors himself in the 

 giving of alms as much as she. Woman is lovely in connec- 

 tion with the education of the young ; is not man equally well 

 employed in the same field ? Is not man as appropriately placed 

 beside the sick-bed as his companion ? — though not, in this 

 an^ all other cases, exerting the same gifts, yet those of equal 

 usefulness and honor, according to the natural endowment of 

 either. No, let not the farmer, nor the strong man of any oc- 

 cupation, indulge the false pride of pretending to be above the 

 admiration of flowers. "But," he says, "flowers look charm- 

 ingly, but have no usefulness ; they do no good that I know 

 of." Suppose it is so ; how much good does the carmine do, 

 that you love to see mantling your Red Astracans as well as 

 any one ? Is the Baldwin better for its ruby coat, or th e 

 Maiden-Blush for the glow that has borrowed it a name from 

 the loveliest of all things ? Is the Bartlett more luscious for 

 its gold, or the Tomato more wholesome for its fine crimson ? 

 But the plainest farmer loves all these better for their beautiful 

 hues, and he knows it, and cannot help it, and still those hues 

 have no more of utility about them than the tint or quilling of 

 an Aster. There is just as fine a vein of enjoyment in the 

 farmer's nature as in any man's ; nay, he, of all men, is the 

 one to have enjoyment — a full, deep, overflowing cup of it, for 

 his physical system is aptest to be tuned to the true natural 

 harmony,, vigorous and strong, and beauty ought to rise on his 



