(VII) 
PREFACE. 
“Ye bright mosaics! that with storied beauty 
The floor of Nature’s temple tessellate, 
What numerous emblems of instructive duty 
Your forms create!” 
—Horace Smith . 
3 0 HE Floral Kingdom is assuredly a most beautiful part of God's Crea¬ 
tion. It is arrayed in rich and varied vesture—its teeming pro¬ 
fusion of Flowering-Plants, each one of which seems mystically to preach 
to us all on the most wonderful Wisdom and Goodness of our common 
Creator and Lord, as also on what we ourselves, as His favorite and fav¬ 
ored creatures ought to do, in order to please Him on earth and thus be¬ 
come happy with Him hereafter. 
Listen, then, Dear Header, to those mysterious teachings, firmly 
resolved to perform conscientiously whatever the God of Nature, through 
Nature’s secret language, may tell you. 
That He may be with you, to guide and inspire you while on these 
your mental excursions through Nature’s lovely Garden, is the sincere 
wish of 
The Author. 
DodctEviule, Wis., August 1, 1900. 
