FOREST AND STREAM, 



?(§oodhnd t <g<mtt mud §mden. 



THIS DEPARTMENT IB EDITED BY W. .1- DAVIDSON, SBO. N. Y. 

 HOR'IIOIILTITBAIj SOOIETX 



NEW YORK FLOWER AND FRUIT 



MISSION. 



I Extracts fiplfl Hie Keiiorts ot 1*76 am) 1873.] 



T1IEBB is an Arab proverb—" If anyman have two loaves 

 of broad let him exchange one of them for the flowers 

 of the Narcissus ; for bread nourishes the body alone, but to 

 look on the Narcissus feeds the soul." It is to satisfy the 

 huuger of the soul that the flower Minion came into being. 

 What it lias accomplished during the past 'eight years is now 

 so well known that it seems hardly utcessmy to defend our 

 existence. Still, if here and there some skeptics are to be 

 found who exclaim : " What, all that fuss over a few roses 

 and strawberries I Do you think it is worth while ?" to thorn 

 we would say: " Is it not. worth while to bring such cheer 

 inW crowded pauper hospitals, that l lie physician says, 'Even 

 the operations are more successful on flower day, for then the 

 patients seem, to take courage ?' Is it not worth while to 

 carry a bunch of grapes to the old woman dying alone in the 

 attic of a Baxter street tenement and hear her murmur with 

 tears in htr eyes, ' Ah, but dear lady, the best is, they taste so 

 BWeet to my heart ?' Is it not worth while to bring the ' glory 

 of the lilies ' into the darkened lives of that great multitude of 

 struggling, sinning, and sorrowing beings living in the depths 

 of our great city, to show those whom, perhaps, words would 

 never reach, the purity and blessedness of Him whose loving 

 heart yearnctb after them ?" 



Those of us who have accompanied the flowers on their 

 mission have seen how a few violets softened the heart of a 

 poor, winning girl, who had been preached and prayed over iu 

 vain, and that" a bnuch of roses often brought new life to a 

 sufferer whom medicine had failed to relieve. 



11 those skeptics who tlvuk that charity should be confined 

 to soup and flannel, the necessities of life, "could have witnessed 

 the joy Will) which the "Flower ladies" were received mi 

 their first visit to one of our great Charily Hospitals, we think 

 they would have come away remembering that, after all, now 

 as of old, we do not live by bread alone. 



At first the patients to whom the lilt le bouquets were offered, 

 though looking at the flowers V ith longing eyes, all said they 

 ■■ didjl't care for any that day;" hut at last one poor girl, al- 

 most too far gone "in consumption to speak, exclaimed, in 

 broken lories: " Indeed, 1 would give anything for one of 

 tnem roses, marm ; but t haven't a cent to buy one with." 



When we explained that the flowers had been sent sib a gift 

 by those who, although strangers, had thought about and felt 

 sorry for Ibem in their suffering, the news seemed too good to 

 be true. These poor creatures were so accustomed to he for- 

 gotten by the outside world, that at first, they could hardly 

 realize tins touch of brightness which had come in to them ; 

 but iu a few minutes, however, all those able to be up were 

 crowding around our baskets, begging for even a single flower, 

 while those who were too sick to"bti out of bed were beckou- 

 ing in us with a most Tiitiful eagerness. Wo shall louir re- 

 member the joyous tones of a poor crippled girl, who limped 

 Off on one crutch, waving the other in the air, and shouting at 

 the top of her voice: "Look a here, girls; git up, git up; 

 here's some ladies with a lot of flowers to give away for 

 nothing." 



'1 he o ly sad feaiure of the occasion was that, though our 

 bouquets were of the smallest possible dimensions, we could 

 ugh to supply the eight hundred patients, and 

 ltd looks ol those who were, passed by were most 



tta di 



When we visited the hospital again, several weeks after, 

 many ol the patients showed us the dried flowers, which they 

 "-couldn't bear to throw away till you brought some more." 



When we had not flowers enough to go round— too often, 

 :-,!;is i he ease in our treat hospitals— preference was always 

 given to tho-e confined to their teds, and the various subter- 

 fuges to which l lie convalescents resorted to secure the much- 

 coveted bouquets wars most comical. One old blind woman, 

 thuuab well enough to be up and dressed, the moment she 

 heard the flower ladies were Coming, would jump into bed, 

 shoes and all, and with only the tip of her nose appearing 

 above the sheets, would anaou 

 t| , he '-WHS very sick to-day." 

 us of her trick, her grief at the. II 

 posy," us She called 



least was. alwaysi 

 At the end of o 



this he 



lembercd, 



r first seas 



the feeblest i 



When at fast a nurse told 



night of losing her "sweet 



tense that in future she at 



one of the chief physicians of 



hat he thought had been the effect 



H 



r Flower Mission theie. He answered: "I can only 

 hope that you will continue your good work. On flower days 

 i ■ !,■. i- 'atmosphere of the hospital seems changed. The 

 patients brighten up wonderfully, and your flowers have done 

 muuv of them more goed than my medicine." 



It would be impossible here to give an account of the many 

 pleasant instances which were continually happening in the 

 hospitals, aQd which showed better than mere words the good 

 the flowers were doing. Never was there a charity whose ad- 

 ministration was so'delighttul ; tears and blessings were 

 showered upon us from every side, and as year alter year 

 passes we see new evidences of the lasting good which has 

 been accomplished. In the insane asylums, also, the flowers 

 were most gratefully received, and the physicians in charge 

 testified as to the soothing influence which they exerted even 

 over some of the most violent cases. 



Among the institutions for children on Randall's Island, the 

 bouquets seemed always particularly welcome. One little 

 dwjrt cried for joy over the first one "he received, and said in 

 a pathetic tone : " Why, nobody has given me a single flower 

 Wore this summer." We should think if there were any one 

 unable to appreciate the flowers it would be a blind idiot, but 

 the following extract from a letter ot one of the lad es who 

 visited Randall's Island speaks for itself-, * * " As theflowers 

 were not. sufficient to serve all, we had to leave out a great 

 portion of the idiot children, except such special cases as 

 John, who has been there fourteen years, and who has been 

 blind' for the past three. If you could only have seen the joy 

 the smell of those flowers gave that poor afflicted creature, 

 and how gently he fingered them over to examine them, you 

 would, indeed, have felt rewarded for all your summer's toil 

 aDd labor among the flowers. Ho persevere and never get dis- 

 couraged. Your present efforts are the actual, but the future 

 possibilities of what you may consider but a small act no man 

 knoweth," 



During the past summer (1877) every hospital iu this city 

 and vicinity, from Chambers street to Hart's Island, has been 

 visited by the Flower Mission, and the unanimous testimony 

 of the nurses and physicians iu charge as to the good actually 

 accomplished, has been most encouraging. 



But a branch of our work which has greatly increased 

 within the last, two years, and to which we would now call 

 special attention, is the distribution of fruit, and flowers among 

 llie sick poor in tenement houses. This has beeu clone chiefly 

 by the aid of Bible readers, City Missionaries and Children's 

 Aid Society visitors. Last: summer over 11,000 bouquets, with 

 large quantities of oranges, lemons, grapes, strawberries and 

 currants were taken to such cases. 



The miseries endured by the sick in a New York tenement 

 house during the intense heat of our summer can scarcely be 

 exaggerated. Without the skillcinursiug found now even in 

 our charily hospitals; with a seamy supply of the. most un- 

 palatable food ; with absolutely none of the comforts which 

 alleviate the sickness of our own dear ones ; breathing the 

 stifling at mosphere of a tiny room which often serves for a 

 kitchen as well as a chamber, what wonder ia it that every 

 summer the mortality list of our poor rises to thousands. After 

 seeing the surroundings of many such a sufferer, one only 

 wonders that they ever lake courage to live. Wasting away, 

 perhaps with some disease which cannot be admitted 'into the 

 ordinary hospitals, friendless, losing faith in God and man, it 

 is to such that the Flower Mission goes. The cluster of roses, 

 the basket of fruit fresh from some country garden, and the 

 few words of sympathy given week after week, bring a cheer 

 and comfort that are often the first steps to recovery. And 

 if, as alas is often the case, the struggle for life is too hard for 

 the siok children, enfeebled by bad air and lack of food, the 

 Flower Mission has comforted the heart of many a poor 

 mother by laying on the coffin of her little one. who was as 

 dear to her as yours are to you, the bunch of flowers picked 

 and sent by some other child, whose happier lot was to live in 

 God's blessed country. 



Tossing upon the straw pallet laid so often on the bare floor 

 of a tiny room, which serves for kitchen as well as ekam'-.er— 

 the stilling heat of a New York July day pouring in, a cup of 

 warmish water and a bit of bread the only food— one can well 

 understand how the gift of a bunch of delicate wild (lowers, 

 fresh from the fields, an orauge and a few kind words seem 

 almost like a glimpse of heaven. One little girl, who lay on 

 the floor moaning her life away with a hopeless disease, said, 

 when she. firasped the. little bouquet and looked up to sec a 

 lady holding out a bunch of white grapes, " Is it an angel, 

 mother?" 



As one of the flower ladies climbed, last summer, the steep 

 stairway which led to an upper tenement, where a little boy 

 had lain sick for weeks, she was met bjr the weeping mother, 

 who said: "Oh, mam. Johnny died this morning, but. do 

 come in and sec him." There on a bed of rags lay the little 

 five-year-old child, claspiug iu his tiny hand a withered rose- 

 bud. "It's the one you brought him last Monday. 1 couldn't 

 get it away even to put it in the water, and last night, when 

 lie was a little out of his head, he kept saying, ' Don't it smell 

 like the country, mother?' " 



One woman, who had been confined to her bed nearly two 

 years with a most painful disease, was delighted by the gift of 

 a little hanging pot of slips some friends h.d sent us. It was 

 placed by her bed and made the one bright spot in the wretched 

 room she. occupied. Day after day she watched it with the 

 greatest interest, counting every new leat that came out. As 

 she grew worse and worse, it was almost her only pleasure, 

 and the day before she. died, as her last request, she begged it 

 might la; taken over and placed on her grave. 



Last summer one of the ladies connected with the Mission 

 made it her work to take every week a basket of flowers and 

 visit the various tenement houses in some of the most wretched 

 quarters of the city. She sought out especially the sick, but 

 also gave as far as possible a single ros<\ a spray ot lilacs, or, 

 what among the Germans was always most highly prized, a 

 peony, to any poor woman who seemed to especially care for 

 just such a gill, Going into some of those rear building, 

 which are almost, shut out from the light and sunshine of 

 heaven, she would be quickly surrounded by a crowd of 

 women in every stage of wrecheduess, and the eagerness with 

 which they begged for a single flower was really pitiful. 

 These were not children, but grown women, from the totter- 

 ing grandmother who could hardly crawl along, to the young 

 girl whom misery and want had made a woman of almost be- 

 fore she had left her childhood behind. 



If tlui lady had brought a basket of bread to distribute, not 

 half the excitement would have been caused. It was as if the 

 wealth of the Indies bad been offered them. One poor 

 creature said, with tears of joy in her eyes, "Why, 1 never 

 had a bouquet in ail my life before." And another exclaimed, 

 as she took the pure and fragrant lily of the Annunciation (a 

 flower always especially welcome), " You seem like an angel 

 from Heaven, lady; if you should go through every street iu 

 New York you couldn't find a sadder or more wretched 

 woman than I." Sometimes they would almost over 

 the flower lady iu their anxiety lest there should not be enough 

 to go around, but some stout-fisted wouiau was always found 

 to offer herself as a protector, to say as one of them really did, 

 " I'm a just going to see that there ain't any family in this 

 house mean enough to want two bouquets." 



One hot day last July this lady found her way with her 

 basket to the upper story of a great tenement house, knocking 

 at several doors without response. At last a feeble voice was 

 heard to say, " Come in," and there she found in a dark bed- 

 room, having light only through a door opening into another 

 room, a woman in the last stages of consumption. She was 

 entirely alone ; on a box beside the bed was placed a crust of 

 bread and a cup of water. When asked if she had nobody to 

 take care of her, she answered, " There i? only my husband 

 and me, and if he should stay at home he would lose bis 

 work. When I cough very hard I do feel a bit lonely, but 

 then the neighbors come in sometimes, and it isn't as bad as 

 you'd think." She could hardly realize that the bunch of 

 fragrant lilies was really for her, and said, "Oh, how happy, 

 how bappy I am ; now I shan't be afraid of dying alone with 

 them by me." 



The avenues are continually opening before US. One day 

 last summer a largo box of flowers came to our rooms too late 

 in the afternoon to be taken to any hospital. Having heard 

 that there was to be a meeting held that evening at a mission 

 among fallen women in one of the worst, quarters of I he city, 

 it was suggested 'hat we send the loose flowers there, which 

 we del. 



The next day the missionary in charge came up to Mill of 

 the excitement they had caused, At the close ol the meeting 

 it was announced that some flowers had been sent, which 

 would be given out to all those who cared to wait for them. 

 The women were almost wild with delight, and crowded 

 around, begging for even a bit of green. One poor girl was 



found in the corner of the room sobbing piteously over a 

 faded rosebud of a kind "just, like those which used to grow 

 in mother's little garden 'at home." Several of the most 

 hardened wemen went away in tears, hugging their flowers to 

 their bosoms. 



The lady in charge said, "The great difficulty has been to 

 induce the girls to come to our meetings, but if you would only 

 send us flowers s-metimeB I really believe we could be the 

 means of saving some of these poor creatures." 



But not for flowers alone do we appeal. We wculd remind 

 you most earnestly how acceptable, net only fruits of all 

 kinds, hut. even the fresh vegetables which you have in such 

 profusion, would be to our sick here. The poor iu tenement 

 houses have not eveu the comforts of the hospitals. Imagine 

 your own loved ones try ing to recover from a fever on a diet 

 of lumps of greasy meat of the loughest description, with the 

 occasional luxury of some withered vegetable which lias been 

 kept in the market until its price has fallen to the limits of 

 the poor man's purse. Think of the voting girl dying with 

 lingering consumption (brought on by overwork and ex- 

 posure), with only a crust, of bread and a cup of waler, not 

 even cold, to tempt her appetite. 



But while dwelling upon what yet. remains to be done, wo 

 would not fail to thank most heartily those friends whose 

 generous contributions in the past have already enabled us to 

 accomplish so much. And first, the various express com- 

 panies to whose liberality we are most, deeply indebted. In- 

 deed, but for their generous offer to bring us packages free of 

 charge, our work could nol have been carried on. It. has been 

 a great gift, and one which we all appreciate. Even the ex- 

 pressmen have taken the liveliest interest in the Flower Mis- 

 sion, and when staggering up to our rooms with the heavy 

 baskets and barrels they so often bring, their cheery, " Well, 

 we've got a splendid load for }'ou to-day," was always en- 

 couraging. 



Then to the children, who have ever been among our best 

 friends. Many day-schools in neighboring towns have made 

 most liberal contributions, and several Sunday-school classes 

 have sent, regularly boxes of flowers they have themselves col- 

 lected and made into little bouquets. 



And lastly, our warmest thanks are due to the hundreds of 

 friends throughout the country who have taken such a hearty 

 interest in the New York Flower and Fruit, Mission. The y 

 have made us most liberal contributions of both flowers an'jj 

 fruit, whose collection and packing have often cost them rea 

 personal sacrifices. It is to their efforts that the success of 1 

 our Mission is duo, and though it has been impossible to thank 

 very individual contributor by letter, we would say here that 

 noie thanks and blessings have been bestowed by the grateful 

 ecipieuts of their bounty than would suffice to reach every 

 me of them. During the past season forty towns sent us 

 regular weekly contributions, while from thirty-eight others 

 occasional contributions were received. ]n many of these 

 branch flower missions have been formed to collect and for- 

 ward flowers and fruit, and we would recommend that this 

 plan should be carried out whenever practicable, as so much 

 more is accomplished by organized and systematic effort. In 

 order to form such a branch it is best to have notices given in 

 the churches and newspapers that contributions for the New 

 York Flower Mission will be received once or twice a week at 

 some specified house. Then appoint a 

 people lo send, if only a few flowers or a li 

 little trouble will be found in filling weekly i 

 some places the youug people meet together ir 

 tie up the flowers in bunches, und = to arrange !__ 

 for distribution. During our busy season this is, of course, 

 a great assistance. As these small bouquets are crushed 

 more easily than the loose flowers, they shotikl not be packed 

 till just before the box is sent. 



Cover the bottom of your box or basket with a newspaper, 

 or a few ferns or leaves. Tie the flowers together iu bunches, 

 each kind by itself, and pack them iu layers separated by 

 papers; the upper layer should lie sprinkled and covered 

 closely with newspaper, to exclude the air as much as possi- 

 ble. A simple wooden box fastened with a strap is easily 

 procured. It is almost air tight, and forms one of the U st 

 means of conveyance. A pasteboard box wdl answer the 

 purpose almost as well, and saves us the trouble of returning 

 it. Fruit should be packed, if possible, in a basket or tin 

 box, never mixed with the flowers. 



All boxes and baskets which are to be returned to the 

 senders should have clearly painted on them in addition to the 

 directions (.New York Flower and Fruit Mission, 239 Fourth 



Avenue) the words, return to Mrs. , with the full 



address. Complaints have sometimes been made that baskets 

 have Tailed to be returned to their owners. This almost 

 always arises from the fact that the address is written on a tag 

 or card, which is often rubbed off and lost in transportation. 

 All packages should be given to the express agent on board 

 the train, who hag orders to forward them to New York free 

 of charge. They should be. sent in as early a train as possible 

 on Monday or Thursday mornings, directed "New York 

 Flower and Fruit Mission, 289 Fourth Avenue." 



All kinds of flowers are acceptable, but lilacs, laurel, pond 

 lilies, roses, pinks and sweet geranium seem to be the greater 

 favorites. We would suggest to Ihosc who occasionally send 

 flowers made up into bouquets ready for distribution that the 

 bouquets should be small, the stems should not be cut off too 

 short, and that if possible a sweet flower should be put into 

 each one. The cry always is, "Give us something with a 

 smell, please!" 



Fruit of every discription is valuable (as are also jellies), 

 though grapes call out I be deepest gratitude. 



Among vegetables— peas, lettuce and tomatoes are especially 

 good. 



The rooms of the Flower Mission are at the Hull, 259 

 Fourth Avenue (up stairs). They are open every Monday and 

 Thursday from ten to two, from the 1st of May till the last of 

 October, and the ladies in charge will always be glad to give 

 any information about the working of the Mission, 'those 

 who are. willing to assist, either in making bouquets or in dis- 

 tributing thorn iu the hospitals and various iusiiuuions will be 

 cordially welcomed. Such assistance is especially desired.. 



imittee to urge 

 ntlful of fruit, and 

 i large box. In 

 ing to 

 ready 



The Coolest op Su.mmku Oi.othino.— V'eeuliar pi tiff's 

 adapted to. summer gear seam to be only made in the Last. 

 Now Boston enjoys peculiar bri ntal fabrics which the rest of 

 the world knows nothing about. But Messrs. G. W . Simmons 

 and Son, of Oak Hall, Boston, come to the rescue and oiler 

 all these dainty East India ma!cii-ds. 1 J, re can be found sue!) 

 novelties as pure Cnrjh Bilk, Old fashioned Sen-surf it and 

 Pongee, and real NanlWCB. All these .are. goods Messrs. Sim- 

 mons and Sons make up, or will give the purchaser those, of 

 oriental fashioning. They offer chogas, pijamahs and cobias. 

 For warm weather there is,uothinglikcapijamah.— [&« aatos/- 

 tisement. 



