256 Floriculture. 
FLORICULTURE. 
Flowers are the ornaments of vegetable life, and have in all 
ages been cultivated by persons of leisure and taste, for the 
pleasure they yield to the eye and the fancy. While generally 
healthful and exhilerating from being pursued in the open air, 
floriculture is justly considered to be a fine and harmless recrea- 
tion, which by leading to tranquil contemplation of natural 
beauty, and diverting the mind from gross worldly ocupations, 
has a positively moral, and therefore, highly beneficial tendency. 
It has also the advantage of being alike open to the pursuit of 
high and low, rich and poor, the over-toiled man of business and 
the industrious mechanic. It may be followed with equal enjoy- 
ment by individuals of both sexes, and, as is well known, on 
every imaginable scale, from that of a single flower-pot or orna- 
mental border, to the princely green-house and the exquisitely 
varied parterre. The natural grace, simplicity, and attractive 
coloring of flowers, have afforded endless themes for moralists and 
poets, and volumes have been written to show how many asso- 
tions of feeling, simple and sublime, these beauteous objects are 
calculated to excite. As our desire is to improve the under- 
standing, we hope to be excused for pausing an instant over this 
agreeable view of the flower-culture. Few natural objects are 
more poetical, or more calculated to refine the taste than flowers. 
" From the majestic sun-flower, towering above her sisters of the 
garden, and faithfully turning to welcome the god of day, to the 
little humble and well-known weed that is said to close its eye 
before impending showers, there is scarcely one flower which 
may not from its loveliness, its perfume, its natural situation, or 
its classical association, be considered highly poetical." 
As the welcome messenger of spring, the snow-drop claims our 
first regard, and countless are the lays in which the praises of 
this little modest flower are sung. The snow-drop teaches us a 
lesson too. It makes out the progress of time. We cannot 
behold it without feeling that another spring has come, and im- 
mediately our thoughts recur to the events which have occurred 
since last its fairy bells were expanded. 
It is of little consequence what flower comes next under con- 
sideration. The violet, while it pleases by its modest, retiring 
beauty, possesses the additional charm of the most exquisite of 
all perfumes, which, inhaled with the pure and invigorating 
breezes of spring, always bring back in remembrance a lively 
conception of the delightful season. Thus, in poetical language, 
the " violet scented gale" is synonymous with those accumulated 
