20 ORCHIDS. 
cut flowers. [This was all true some years since.] The D. nobdile 
blossoms freely during the winter, and is one of the very few 
orchids that will grow and blossom quite well in ordinary 
sitting-rooms.” 
The hand that gives the angels wings, 
And plants the forests by its power, 
O’er mountain, vale, and champaign flings 
The seed of every herb and flower; 
Nor forests stand nor angels fly 
More at God’s will, more in his eye, 
Than the green blade strikes down its root, 
Expands its bloom, and yields its fruit. 
How camest thou hither? From what soil, 
Where those that went before thee grew, 
Exempt from suffering, care and toil; 
Clad by the sunbeams, fed with dew? 
Tell me on what strange spot of ground 
Thy rock-borne kindred yet are found, 
And I the carrier-dove will be 
To bring them wondrous news of thee. 
MonTGomery. 
We insert here an appropriate extract from a delightful book 
by the Rev. W. C. Gannett, entitled “A Vear of Miracle.” 
“What would summer be without the flowers? And yet sum- 
mer with flowers is a modern improvement. For ages and ages, 
through far the greater part of its life, thus far, a flowerless earth 
has turned its sombre face up to the sun. It had not learned 
to smile. Even the summers of the ages to which we owe our 
coal-beds had no flowers, no fruit-blossoms, no grass, and of 
course no bees and no song-birds, in them! All the plants, 
wise men say, were like our ferns, or club-mosses, or meadow- 
