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—you perceive his very soul is affected, tears are perhaps rolling down 
his cheeks, and he seems carried beyond the scene where he is. You 
wonder at his enthusiastic feelings, but rely on it he has had tenfold the 
enjoyment that you have; it has stirred up emotions you know nothing 
of, and why ?—his taste is greater, has been more cultivated and exer¬ 
cised than yours. So in the same way with gardening. You bring 
into your garden one who declares he is fond of flowers ; he looks round 
and says—It’s very pretty,” and having thus oracularly delivered his 
opinion, walks out, a five minutes’ survey being quite sufficient. But 
you bring in another who is a florist; each flower in your garden he 
will dwell over, talk with you of its merits, rejoice if he sees anything 
new; nay, you take him to a frame where there is nothing in bloom, 
but the plants are to him interesting for all that—their healthy appear¬ 
ance, their character, the excellence and comparative goodness of the 
sorts, are all to him points of importance, and he can remain with you 
hours talking over them. All this seems to some persons very extra¬ 
ordinary ; or, as a lady once said to me, “ What can you want poaching 
about amongst those plants ? ” Yet it is but the difference of taste, 
cultivated and improved ; your first friend may have a love of flowers 
and a taste for their growth, but he has never cultivated it. If this 
theory be true—and I think it is—you will be able to understand who 
they are that are really interested in a flower-show; to the idle it may 
be a pleasant place to lounge awhile, but to the lover of flowers it is a 
place where he hopes to obtain fresh information, and have his eyes 
gratified with the sight of new and interesting things. But let me not 
be supposed for a moment to insinuate that this taste is confined to a 
few; the love of nature is natural, so to speak, to man, and will mani¬ 
fest itself in every circumstance. 
“Expelle naturam furco, et redibit,” 
was the exclamation of an old Latin poet, which means, “ Drive out 
nature with a pitchfork, and she will return.” You see it in the midst 
of a crowded metropolis : the squares of London, blackened though the 
foliage is, and stunted the flowers, yet bear witness to this; the little 
box of Mignonette high up in a garret window, the Geraniums of a 
cottage window, the nosegay that the trembling bride carries in her 
hand, or the Roses wherewith affection has decked the grave of one 
loved in life, all testify to it: but all I desire to impress upon you is 
this, that it is something to cultivate, encourage, improve, and some¬ 
thing which, I may add, has its own peculiar advantages—that gardening 
is an art, like all arts has its devotees, and, like them all, is capable of 
affording pleasure to those who follow it. 
And what are these advantages ? We desire to recollect that all are 
members of a community—that we “ none of us live unto ourselves,” 
and that in considering the advantages to be derived from the pursuit 
of any calling or art, our question should be, not only what may be of 
use to ourselves , but to those amongst whom we are placed; were it 
injurious to them, no one would be justified in following it; if it be 
advantageous, that ought to be an additional motive to us to follow it. 
I think we all feel how much the products of a garden minister to not 
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