Sweet nurslings of the vernal skies, 



Bathed in soft airs, and fed with dew. 

 What more than magic in you lies, 



To fill the heart's fond view ? 

 Relics ye are of Eden's bowers. 



As pure, as fragrant, and as fair 

 As when ye crowned the sunshine hours, 



Of happy wanderers there/' 



N this age. when the means of human enjoyment have so 

 greatly increased, and a diversity of pure and elevating 

 pleasures await each sense of the lover of nature and arts 

 flowers have become an indispensible luxury. 



For, as there is a co-relation and harmony of the fac- 

 ulties ; and a just education demands that culture shall 

 5| be many-sided ; so a pure and elevated taste neglects 

 no form of beauty, natural or artistic. 

 There is in all well balanced minds a passion for the beautiful, and this 

 natural susceptibility directed by education and developed by the ministry 

 of congenial objects, constitutes one of our broadest and most blissful rela- 

 tions to nature and mankind. 



Flowers are Nature's holiday garb ; a radiant alphabet by which the 

 devout heart can interpret the Divine Love. They appeal to the finer 

 susceptibilities more universally than music or w^orks of art, and are Nature's 

 softest utterances, that, like the still, small voice of the Prophet, touches the 

 heart. While the lofty mountain, or ''old ocean's gray and melancholy 

 waste " — awaken solemn and grand emotions, impressing the hermit or 

 the philosopher, flowers are alike the joy of rich and poor, the aged and 

 children ; and, as the creations of light itself, are the heritage of every 

 land, the delight of man, or the prophecy of his advent. 





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