KIDD’S OWN JOURNAL. 
FLOWERS AND THEIR INFLUENCES. 
Flowers, the sole luxury that Nature knew, 
In Eden’s pure and spotless garden grew. 
Mrs. BARBAULD. 
T HAS BEEN SWEETLY “SUNG AND 
sAIpD” BY Mary Howlrt, in her 
“ Birds and Flowers”—‘things meght 
have been so constituted, that the 
wants of man should have been 
supplied without the existence of a 
Cali single flower.’ Their creation, there- 
fore, seems especially adapted and intended 
to promote the happiness of man. 
The love of flowers is one of the earliest- 
developed traits in the human character. 
Every child loves flowers. ‘There seems a 
natural instinctive sympathy in the heart of 
childhood with the beauties of nature. We 
have all seen children in the country rush 
forth with bounding delight into the green 
meadows in April, on their weekly half- 
holiday, to gather violets and primroses 
their hearts as free from care as the birds 
that sing above their heads, and as happy as 
human creatures on earth may be. 
And we have seen the pent-up children 
of our metropolis, eagerly engaged in the 
almost hopeless quest of a stray flower 
blooming in the grass of the public park, 
and rejoicing over the discovery of one so- 
litary golden buttercup, with more real joy 
than the emigrant feels when he finds a 
“nugget’’ of gold at the diggings. 
But what have childhood, and its poetry, 
and its imnocent pursuits, to do with the cold 
prose of a garden newspaper? Much, very 
much, as we think. In the tastes of child- 
hood we hear the voice of nature. The 
child’s love of flowers is the exponent of a 
beautiful fact. It tells us that the love of 
flowers is inherent in human nature; for what 
is childish is natural, and the love of flowers 
is only like every other grace of humanity, 
in being most strongly developed in early 
years, before contact with this rough and | 
cold world has blunted the sensibilities and 
chilled the affections. 
The taste for floral beauty is an essential | 
element of humanity. When that humanity | 
was in its pristine condition, that taste was 
33 
in jugs and basins. We find flowers in the 
factory and workshop, and even with the 
prisoner in his cell.”’ 
The chemist has shown us that plants are 
essential to our physical existence, to purify 
the air and make it respirable ; and they are 
no less indispensable to our moral life. The 
moral influence of flowers is as important, 
to say the least, as their material. And 
here comes the point of our connection with 
the subject. If the love of flowers is such 
an important and universal principle, and 
capable of being made great use of in the 
elevation of our race, it is no small part of 
our duty to direct attention to it, and to 
endeavor so to apply it that it may accom- 
plish its end. For we are not of those who 
look on gardening as a mere system of means 
and appliances to grow long cucumbers, or 
pineapples, of so many pounds weight; or 
to train plants so as to win medals at exhibi- 
tions. We regard it rather as one of the 
many levers which are to help in raising 
mankind to a condition of comparative 
felicity. And we want to beg the earnest 
attention of our readers for one moment, to 
a few thoughts on its application to this 
purpose. 
Limiting ourselves to our own country, 
and the present day—let us ask, is that use 
made of the universal passion for flowers 
which, as an element in the moral and social 
regeneration of our people, it demands and 
will repay? We are not going to make 
gardening the panacea for the nation’s ills, 
any more than we can concede that honor to 
temperance, education, or political reform ; 
but we hold it quite unnecessary to prove, 
that if the child’s love of nature’s beauties 
were developed in the man—that if they who 
now spend their leisure time in the alehouse, 
or somewhere still worse, had the opportu- 
nity and inclination to spend that time in 
cultivating their gardens, themselves and the 
community would be very great gainers by 
the change. 
A great deal has been done this way in 
some of the rural districts, of recent years. 
Clergymen and gentlemen have exerted 
themselves to induce their poorer neighbors 
to pay more attention to their gardens, by 
strong, and yet amply gratified; and it is | offering prizes for the best specimens of cul- 
only as vice or misery hardens the heart that, ture they could exhibit. All honor to such 
like other virtuous principles, it falls to de- | efforts! Marred in their success, as they 
_eay. As Charles Dickens eloquently said have sometimes been, by what we shall call 
last year, at the meeting of the Gardeners’ | the patronising and pauperising spirit of 
Benevolent Institution, “Men who have | their promoters, a thing as injurious to real 
agreed in nothing else have agreed to delight | benevolence as can be imagined; hindered 
in gardening. When we travel by our|as they have often been by other causes, 
railways, we see the weaver striving for a|they have done great good, and will do 
scrap of garden—the poor man wrestling | much more. But they must be more widely 
with smoke for a little bower of scarlet- | extended. Why have we not a cottagers’ 
runners—and they who have no spot of! flower-show in every agricultural village? 
ground of their own will have their gardens | There ought to be one, and there might be 

Vou. IV.—3. 
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