AMERICAN AURICULTiURIST. 
231 
is a frequent cause of barreness in this class 
of fruits. Melocoton. 
HURRAH FOR THE HOLLY. 
Hurrah for the Holly the true evergreen, [faded, 
The plant that looks bright when most bright things have 
And which, when old Winter has spluttered his spleen, 
Still shelters the stem that in summer it shaded ; 
So friends that in sunshine alone hover round, 
And when poverty threatens fly off in a volley, 
May turn to the tree that unchanging is found, 
And learn that a lesson is taught by the Holly. 
Hurrah for the Holly ! the evergreen Holly ! 
Come weave me a wreath of its berries to-night, 
Its presence shall banish the churl, Melancholy. 
And send us,instead, the young fairy Delight. 
AN ESSAY ON FLOWERS. 
THEIR KINDS. 
They are of all kinds of shapes. They are 
of all kinds of perfumes, disagreeable or deli¬ 
cious ; they are of all kinds of toughness— 
delicate, so that they die of a stroke of the 
sun, or so strong that the hotter the sun the 
brighter they are. Some can not live in a 
hot climate, others can not live in cold ; 
some can not bear a wet soil, others can not 
bear a dry—all owing to their different, con¬ 
stitutions. Some are tall; others are short; 
some have big heads; others little. The 
heads of some are long ; of others, almost 
perfectly round. As to color, the rainbow 
is not a circumstance to them ; the number 
of their colors is legion—all sorts of grades. 
They are not near as accommodating as peo¬ 
ple. The man from Africa will live in Hali¬ 
fax, and the man from Halifax will do well 
in the West Indies ; but the aloe will not 
flourish at the North, and the rose will not 
get along in South America. 
AS TO THEIR NAMES. 
They have the common names they are 
familiarly known by, and the uncommon 
names they are christened with by the bot¬ 
anists ; but the familiar names are much the 
most significant, being generally connected 
with the peculiar character of the flower— 
the morning-glory, because it is the most 
brilliant in the morning ; and the sun-flower, 
because it has a peculiar way of turning 
toward the sun. The morning-glory is 
called, by the scientific gentlemen, the con¬ 
volvulus, which is certainly not as agreeable 
a title as the other. 
CAPACITY FOR IMPROVEMENT. 
It is extraordinary what a change can be 
produced by a mixture and association with 
other flowers, and by a proper attention to 
the food of the plant; according as the earth 
is rich or poor, clayey or gravelly, will the 
plant change its color, its size, and its per¬ 
fume. The hydrangea changes its color as 
it changes its soil; and by mixture with other 
dahlias, by skillful graftings, the dahlia be¬ 
comes larger and more double. 
WILD OR DOMESTIC. 
The wild run wild—nobody takes any 
care of them; the cultivated are watched, 
trained and guarded. I said nobody takes 
care of the wild ; this is wrong. The wild 
are taken care of; the kind Being who is al¬ 
ways looking after the poor, the destitute, 
and the unprotected, takes care of them. The 
truth is, he takes care of both ; without him 
they could come to nothing, either of them. 
But the cultivated fare better; they not only 
have the protection of Providence, but of 
man in the bargain. 
WHO LIKE THEM. 
The young girl is attractedj'by! beauty. 
She is enthusiastic at color, she shows them 
smiling ; her love is not grounded upon any 
knowledge of virtue in the plant—her eye 
alone is consulted. Sometimes she is terri¬ 
bly deceived ; she suffers from bad associa¬ 
tion—she is poisoned—and she learns a les¬ 
son rather too late, The old florist takes 
delight in a flower. He has deposited the 
small seed ; he has watched its first appear¬ 
ance in the world—its first leaves ; it has, 
perhaps, been almost killed by the heat or 
the cold ; but by good management he has 
preserved its life. It is a monument of his 
exertions ; he becomes an amateur, and then 
a connoisseur , and likes to see every new 
variety. 
WHO TAKES CARE OF THEM I 
They are generally rough-looking old fel¬ 
lows, perfectly unsuited to the beautiful ob¬ 
jects they are connected with. But these 
objects thrive in their green-liouses; they 
seem to understand them thoroughly ; they 
know when they require watering, and they 
know when they have enough. Every plant 
looks as if it was thriving and getting on. 
There are none of the miserable, sickly, half 
dead things, you find in private collections of 
those who do not understand their manage¬ 
ment. The florists are interested. There 
are others who keep them, not for money, 
but for love—in the windows, right up against 
the glass, the glass beautifully clear ; doc¬ 
tors keep them, and keep them beautifully. 
I can not say so much for them, when left to 
the guardianship of the young an beautiful 
belle; she is apt to be a cruel guardian— 
one-half generally die, in the winter, through 
neglect, frozen to death ; or roasted in sum¬ 
mer by exposure to the sun. Now and then 
you may find a judicious lady, but, take the 
sex in general, they are pretty bad managers. 
There are good, however ; a good house-keep¬ 
er is often a good flower-keeper ; one who 
can make a pudding can often make a soil. 
To make aTpudding, she deposits a certain 
quantity of flour, a certain quantity of sugar, 
and judiciously sprinkles her spices; to 
make the soil, she mixes clay, and gravel, 
and manure, and sprinkles carefully with 
charcoal. In this way a lady sometimes 
succeeds beautifully ; whatever she touches 
is sure to do well; success is sure to follow. 
Success is ape to be called luck. It is no 
such thing; it comes from peculiar skill in 
a proper formation of the earth ; and, more¬ 
over, in not exposing at wrong times to too 
much sun, and by risking an exposure at a 
proper time—withhrawing from the rain at 
the right moment, and coming into it when 
good will follow. All this requires good judg¬ 
ment, which some ladies have. 
WHERE THEY ARE FOUND. 
I should like you to tell me where they 
are not. Go where you please in the coun¬ 
try, and you find them—in the low grounds 
and in the high. In the low grounds, where 
the soil is richest, you will usually find them 
the most robust. In the high grounds they 
are apt to be smaller, and not so deep in 
their color. You will often find the same 
flower in the high situations and the low; 
usually the high have their peculiar set, and 
the [low theirs. The wild althaea will not 
only refuse to grow on high grounds, but it 
will not grow on low, unless it is peculiarly 
situated right on the water ; it can not live 
away from the water. There are some 
plants that will live anywhere, if they are 
constantly watered; the hydrangea, for in¬ 
stance. There are others which require lit¬ 
tle water, if any; they are dry flowers ; such 
are many of the cactus tribe. 
WHERE THEY GO AFTER DEATH. 
Some go to the most delightful resting- 
places—thevallies of the blessed—the bo¬ 
som of the beautiful maiden. Others go into 
the interior of her body, arranging difficul¬ 
ties there, bringing relief to its distresses ; 
the poppies are among these. The last go 
when they are withered and dried ; the first, 
which the youthful beauty takes for her bou¬ 
quet, have all the brilliancy and complexion 
of life, and the shape of life also. They are 
received so soon after death they do not ap¬ 
pear dead~=decomposUion and decay have 
not begun ; the moment they do begin, be¬ 
fore they become offensive, they are judi¬ 
ciously abandoned. Often they go to the dis¬ 
sectors. They are taken for the promotion 
of science ; they are carefully anatomized— 
the different members examined by the skill¬ 
ful botanist; he gives you their anatomy. 
Sometimes they go into depositories; they 
are skilfully dried, preserving much of their 
form and color, all the moisture being taken 
from their systems by lying between two 
sheets of blotting paper. 
THEIR AGES. 
Some will last a year, and are called annu¬ 
als; others last longer. Small specimens 
of vegetation, however, have not the length 
of life of large trees; they resemble birds— 
the wren will not live as long as the eagle. 
WHY DO WE LOVE THEM? 
It seems the will of heaven we should. 
Heaven is always contriving something to 
please us, to make us happy. One of the 
most successful plans was making us love 
flowers; it is such an innocent passion. We 
must love something, and the love which is 
not too exciting is the best; that of the sex¬ 
es often leads to pain, to actual agony; there 
is little of this in the flower. Some may be 
disappointed in the death of a plant; but the 
pain soon subsides. 
What excites the passion ? 
Propinquity and separation. 
Flowers may have even excellence of 
color, shape and fragrance ; yet if not near, 
they will not excite permanent love. A lady 
brought up in the country has usually a pas¬ 
sion for them. The separation by winter 
brings 'a rage for them in the spring. At 
that season, about the end of April, you see 
women busy in their yards in the city, and 
in their gardens in the country, the young 
and the old. The mother leaves her nur¬ 
sery and spares an hour away from her little 
ones, or they stand by and watch her. She 
takes a pointed stick and digs a hole, where 
she deposits her precious seed or she takes 
upon herself a manly occupation. She 
scrapes away with a hoe a place where she 
may insert a bunch of pinks or columbines ; 
she works pleased and contented. She thinks 
of the flowers which are to come hereafter. 
The young girl leaves her embroidery for 
the snow-drops and her violets ; they are a 
novelty; she enjoys their society. She 
would not in the same degree, if she were 
rich and had a green-house; if she had been 
revelling in their enjoyment through the 
winter, she Avould have been in some meas¬ 
ure dead to it in the spring. But the passion 
of the spring does not last the summer. 
The little girl who in April puts down her 
daisies with such satisfaction, in the month 
of August sees them, without compunction of 
conscience, or the least compassion, per¬ 
haps,, perishing from her own neglect. She 
never takes the trouble to give them a drop 
of water ; they have lost their attraction; 
she no longer cares for them ; she is now 
all coldness, all ice. Before, she was all 
enthusiasm and fervor. Timothy Quaint. 
N. Y, Home Journal, 
Poor Indeed —There is a piece of quiet, 
but telling sarcasm in the following : “ Got a 
paper to spare ?” “ Yes, sir ; here is one of 
our last. Would you like to subscribe, sir, 
and take it regularly ?” “ I would—but I 
am too poor.” He had just returned from 
the circus, which cost 50 cents; lost time 
from his farm, 50 cents; whiskey judging 
from the smell, at least 50 cents—making a 
dollar and a half actually thrown away, and 
then begging for a newspaper, alleging that 
he was too poor to pay for it! That is what 
we call “ saving at a spile, and wasting 
the bung-hole.” 
Earn money before you spend, it. 
