No. 216.] 51 



greatest luxuries of a garden, are as plentiful for eight or nine 

 months of the year as cabbages are here. 



With heartfelt pleasure, T now enter upon a description of what 

 Flora, the Goddess of Flowers, (those glowing, chaste and beautiful 

 inmates of the garden of nature,) furnished on this interesting occa- 

 sion. Full twenty thousand dahlia blooms, of the richest tints and 

 most perfect formation, embracing over two hundred varieties, were 

 offered to the admiring gaze of the visitors to the Fair. Delightful as 

 was their appearance, the scene was still heightened in attraction by 

 that modest queen of the parterre, the rose, the choicest of her off- , 

 spring, appearing in its unassuming yet captivating vesture. Bou- 

 quets arranged with effective taste, baskets decorated with many " an 

 emblem sweet," and ornamental designs, which reflected the glories of 

 the patron goddess, riveted the attention of our contemplative ladies. 

 Do they not themselves appear most lovely when engaged in the in- 

 structive and virtue-creating cultivation of these floral beauties ? As 

 an example worthy of imitation, a lady from our sister city of Brooklyn 

 furnished on this occasion twenty-two beautiful bouquets, and three 

 dishes, embracing twenty-two distinct species, and seventy-eight vari- 

 eties of the flowers of the season, which adorned this most inviting 

 <lepartment of the exhibition. The statue of Flora was crowned with 

 a " living wreath of beauty," while in her fair hands the gems of the 

 •garden, and wild flowers of the field, betokened that the gladdening 

 nymph is capable of conferring the highest happiness on man, strew- 

 ing his path through life with flowers. Nor was so sweet a goddess 

 in her sphere alone: Pomona was there, as the representative of more 

 than two hundred varieties of fruit; apples, fourteen inches in cir- 

 cumference; perfect specimens of pears, peaches, nectarines, plums, 

 quinces, and grapes, alike grateful to the appetite and conducive to 

 health, attested her kind superintendence over these " luscious dain- 

 ties." A wreath of cranberries encircled her he; d, emblematic of her 

 wish that men should taste the most enduring of her ample fruits the 

 long col-d winter through 



But there, too, is that joyous goddess who delights in the golden 

 harvest — in mountain, hill, and valley crowned with plenty, and who 

 spreads " a common feast for all that live:" Ceres! generous deity, 

 from thine own "green arch" behold^thy bounty! At thy feet are 

 laid not only the products of the field, but those of the dairy. As a 

 rival to Stilton and Cheshire, in the fatherland, have we not here 

 mammoth cheeses, evidences of what an American dairy can pro- 

 duce? verily, cheeses nearly six hundred pounds in weight, with a 



