STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 99 



eveiT da}' in going to and returning from school. How I used to 

 love to stand and look through the palings at those gardens ; some- 

 times I would almost forget where I had started to go, in admiring 

 those flowers. One of the gardens belonged to a widow lady who 

 lived in her large house alone ; she always seemed unwilling to allow 

 the scholars the privilege of even looking at her flowers. It was in. 

 her garden that I first saw petunias ; they were the single white and 

 magenta colored ; but oh, how lovel}' they looked to me. As for the 

 other flowers, they were such as one would find in most gardens at 

 that time — two or three varieties of roses, (red and white and old- 

 fashioned Provence and Cinnamon), hollyhocks^ gilias, sweet- 

 williams, marigolds, Spice pinks, London pride, etc. The la.dy 

 that owned the other garden, (which contained about the same 

 things, only a greater profusion of roses), was the exact reverse of 

 the widow. She would fill our hands full of roses in their season, 

 and it used to seem to me that the more she gave us, the more she 

 had ; and I believe it is always thus with flowers. It happened a 

 year or two ago, that I visited the same village, and I could hardh* 

 find a house without a beautiful flower garden attached ; and there 

 were also man}- greenhouses, all of which were doing a thriving, 

 business. I thought to myself, why cannot it be the same in my 

 own little village at home ? But when I thought it over, I was fain, 

 to confess that the change had been as great among the people here,, 

 accoixling to their facilities, as it had been there. I find where there 

 was but one house in the place (thirty-one j^ears ago, when I came 

 here) , that could make any pretension at all to a fiower garden, 

 there is scarcely a house in the village, or for some distance out on 

 the roads leading from it, but has one now ; and they are also well 

 kept, and filled not only with the old-fashioned flowers of our 

 gi'andmotliers' days, but also with the newer varieties. There has 

 also been a great change in horticulture. But still there are some 

 persons, (thank heaven they are not man}'), who seem too intent 

 upon field labor, or upon making money, to have time or inclination 

 to make their dwellings beautiful, or to give their children a little 

 plot of ground for a garden. And yet they say: "Why do our 

 children leave us ?" The great heai't of humanity reaches out after 

 the beautiful ; if it cannot find it here, it will go yonder to seek it. 

 How well does the human spider who sits behind the bar of the 

 gilded saloon know this. Everything that can attract the eye. all 

 that can allure the sense are here displayed ; and so the young and 



