FLOWEks» 



109 



seed in summer, these, or a part of them, shoiiM be cut 

 dov/n, to encourage a production of young leaves below, in 

 succession. It is apt to spread more than is desirable, if 

 sulTered to seed. The swelling stems of the hnochio varie- 

 ty, when of some tolerable substance, should be earthed up 

 on each side five or six inches, to blanch them white and 

 tender. This will be effected in ten days or a fortnight ; 

 and, by successive sowings, or cutting dowm plants during 

 bummer, successive crops of blanched stalks may be had 

 from June to December.' 



" To save seed. — 'Permit some of the best stalks to shoot; 

 they will produce large umbels of seed in autumn.' — Aber- 

 c ro ill bie.^ ' Tj o ii do ii . 



FLOWERS, ORNAMENTAL.— Should the agricul-- 

 turist have no taste for ornamental gardening, yet such is 

 the laudable taste of the fair daughters of America, at the 

 present day, that there are but comparatively few, that 

 do not take an interest in a flower garden. And this 

 alone is a suiScient reason for the publication of these 

 remarks. 



Horticulture, as it respects ornamental gardening, is 

 one of the most innocent, the most healthy, and, to some, the 

 most pleasing employment in life. The rural scenes which 

 it affords are instructive lessons, tending to moral and social 

 virtue ; teaching us to " look through nature up to nature's 

 God." 



Flower gardens were ever held in high estimation hy 

 persons of taste. Emperors and kings have been delighted 

 with the expansion of flowers. " Consider the lilies of the 

 fieldj^^ said an exalted personage, ''how they grow for 

 Solomon, when clothed in the purple of royalty, " was not 

 arrayed like one of these."^^ Nature, in her gay attire, 

 unfolds to view a vast variety, which is pleasing to the hu- 

 man mind ; and consequently has a tendency to tranquillize 

 the agitated passions, and exhilarate the man, nerve the 

 imagination, and render all around him delightful. 



The cultivation of flowers is an employment adapted to 

 every grade, the high and the low, the rich and the poor ; 

 but especially to those who have retired from the busy 

 scenes of active life. Man was never made to rust out in 

 idleness. A degree of exercise is as necessary for the 

 preservation of health, both of body and mind, as food. 

 And what exercise is more fit for him, who is in the decline 

 of life, than that of superintending a well ordered garden 

 What more enlivens the sinking mind ? What more invigfo- 



