264 
THE LADIES' FLORAL CABINET. 
Sctvndens), it being a more rapid grower, and more 
graceful in form and habit. 
The Tradeseantia, in variety for the outer edge 
of the basket, with a Begonia in the centre, is a 
pleasing arrangement: or, for small baskets, there 
is nothing more beautiful than the Tradeseantia alone, 
its rapid growt.h freedom from insects, and its adaption 
to shaded places, are all strong points in favor of its, 
use. 
"VYe might carry out the list of plants to almost an in¬ 
definite extern, that would be suitable for hanging- 
baskets: this, however, would be unnecessary, as those 
we have named will answer every purpose. We should 
say, use such plants as are most convenient and are 
adapted for the places they are to till, bearing in mind 
the fact that the temperature in the room is much 
higher where the basket hangs than nearer the floor; 
consequently, plants should be selected requiring a 
higher temperature tlia* those that are on the plant-stand. 
This is an important consideration, and upon which 
success or failure in a great degree depends. The same 
plant in a suspended basket, at the usual distance from the 
tloor, will require double the water it would were it on 
an ordinary stand. Watering, is, after all, an important 
part of the work; for if the plants are allowed to got dry, 
they rarely recover from it. 
BLUE GENTIAN : A THOUGHT. 
I shall never be a child, 
With its dancing footsteps wild. 
Yor a free-footed maiden any more; 
Yet my heart leaps up to see 
The new leaf upon the tree, 
And to hear the light winds pass 
O'er the flowers in the grass, 
And for very joy brims o’er 
As I kneel and pluck this store 
Cf blue Gentian. 
I shall never climb thy peak, 
Great white Alp. that cannot speak 
Of the centimes that float over ihee like dreams, 
Dumb of all God's teciel things 
Sealed to beggars and to kings— 
Yet I sit in a world ol sight, 
Color, beauty, sound and light, 
While at every step meset ms, 
Small sweet joys spiing up, like gleams 
Of blue Gentian. 
I shall not live o’er again 
This strange life, half bliss, half pain: 
I si all sleep till Iecu call st me to arise, 
Body and soul, with new-hem powers. 
If Thou w akeLest these ix or flow ers, 
Y ilt Thou not awaken me 
Who am thirsting after Thee? 
Ah ! when faith grows dim and dies, 
Let me think of Alpine skies 
And blue Gentian. —Hiss Mulock. 
FLOWERS IN CHURCHYARDS. 
A churchyard or cemetery is most certainly the right 
place for a profusion of flowers. Of all out-dcor mon¬ 
umental decoration, these are by far the most beautiful 
and appropriate. Those who have money to spend upon 
the last habitation of their friends and relations, and 
who piously desire to show their love and sorrow.- by 
some sort of outward sign, will act more wisely in pay¬ 
ing some annual fee to the cemetery gardener to keep 
churchyard flower-beds trim and rretty, than in laying 
out a vast amount of money among stonemasons, 
resulting in ill-executed angels, or trophies of cannon¬ 
balls and swords and cocked-hats, and other such 
insignia, hinting at the professional career of the 
.deceased. 
The sums of money spent on these great ponderous 
-symbolical monuments are often very large. But who 
that bas groaned in presence of some hideous specimen 
of sepulchral bad taste, some terrible combination of 
cherubs and skeletons, or scythes and hour-glasses, of 
broken columns and ponderous marble clouds, and who 
has felt the beauty of one of the flower-begh i graves, 
will n< t testify to the superiority of the gardenei’s w ork 
over that of the stonemason? There is, too, a symlol- 
ism in the in( induction of flowers here which makes 
thi m specially fit. These plants have come up from a 
root which itself was buried in the earth, in order that 
the flowerwhichwe admire might blcom. They were put 
into the ground in the form of seed or bulb, with no 
beauty about them to win our admiration, but they 
come up in due time arrayed in such splendor of deco¬ 
ration as cannot fail to fill us with admiration first, and 
then, as we think longer, with hope. They are grasses 
of the field whose perishable nature has been made 
before now to typify the insecurity of human life. 
Moreover, they suggest, at least, a certain continued 
supervision, a daily tending and care, which favor ihe 
idea, that those to whose memory they are sacred, are 
still held in recollection by their friends.— A. Y. 
