115 
best repay'the task of carrying to city homes; for no lover of 
enhance them in all ways possible, and the most direct way is 
through the gateway of knowledge. 
They would have all who best enjoy God’s gracious gifts of 
sunny plain and wooded hill, of sylvan dales and laughing 
streams, know the flowers as they know the faces of their dearest 
friends. Then will the daintiest plants and blossoms which lan- 
guish and refuse to be comforted amid alien surroundings, be 
enjoyed to the utmost in their native haunts while their sturdier 
brethren will be sought for with all the more eagerness for home 
decoration. 
The ever graceful daisy ranks high among these latter flowers 
and so sturdy is it that the farmer would rise up and call him 
blessed who could eradicate it from his fields, while the army of 
those who love the star-like beauty of its golden-hearted, silver- 
rayed blossoms may rest content in the knowledge of its inde- 
structible vigor. 
And what more dainty than the violet of wayside and meadow, 
or more pregnant with the poetry of spring and the charm of 
the annual resurrection which few of us are yet so self-absorbed, 
or so case-hardened, by even the driving life of the greater cities, 
as to be totally oblivious to. 
There are many others as beautiful as they are sturdy ; but all 
this is merely suggestive and these are mentioned simply because 
they are so well known, and are so typical of such of the wild 
dwellers of wood and plain as can best withstand the demand for 
home decoration, and the almost instinctive and much cultivated 
desire to possess. 
Home decoration is included in the lessons of the schoolroom ; 
and the trend of thought on floral lines might well be directed 
towards the hybrids to the lasting benefit of their wild sisters. 
Man-made to a degree, and in many instances deprived of the 
power of reproducing their kind, a power which brings their 
wilder sisterhood thus much nearer their Creator, the creations 
of the horticulturist’s art are in far nearer keeping with the arti- 
