THE FLOWER AND THE BEE 



nist, is still preserved as a public park by the city of Philadelphia. 

 It contained a great variety of shrubs and trees, as well as 

 herbaceous plants, raised from seeds and roots collected during 

 his numerous journeys and received from his European corre- 

 spondents. There was a greenhouse built by Bartram him- 

 self, over the door of which were inscribed the lines: 



"Slave to no sect, who takes no private road, 

 But looks through nature up to nature's God." 



One of Bartram's correspondents was Peter CoUinson, a 

 London merchant, who had a choice garden, the pride of his 

 life, at Mill Hill, where he skilfully cultivated rare species of 

 plants received from the colonies. In one of his letters to 

 Bartram he exclaims : " Oh, Botany ! delightfullest of all the 

 sciences ! there is no end to thy gratifications." No one who 

 has not experienced it can realize how intense is the enjoy- 

 ment of watching the blooming of plants. A short time be- 

 fore his death Keats told his friend Severn that he thought 

 that his intensest pleasure in life had been to watch the growth 

 of flowers. 



Among children the love of flowers is universal. Says one 

 writer: "I think I never knew a child that did not love flowers. 

 Many children are passionately fond of them, but I never knew 

 a child indifferent to them." Children and flowers ! Flowers 

 and children ! Surely they are the two chief sources of human 

 happiness! Says Donald G. Mitchell: "Flowers and children 

 are of near kin. I love to associate them, and to win the chil- 

 dren to a love of the flowers." I know of a little lad to whom 

 the succession of flowers brings one of the chief joys of the year. 

 With what delight he watches for each blossom in spring, 

 and how eagerly he tells of the treasure he has found ! Here 

 is a pleasure that is free to all, and yet is greater than any money 



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