pe enn ee eee lS SM 
WE love the flowers. Not only do they please the 
eye, and gratify the sense, but to one of a reflective 
turn of mind they are the ie Se of instruction. 
Flowers add a charm to domestic life which nothing 
else can impart. What high encomfums have been 
lavishingly bestowed upon “ vine-clad cottages *?! 
and how often in our readings do we find Totes 
taken of some beautiful geranium that sheds its 
sweet fragrance around the 3 room ! 
After a . dreary winter, with what pleasure we hail 
the little primrose, that, peering above the ground, 
whispers of the coming spring, telling us that Win- 
ter’s reign is over, that the time of flowers has come , 
and that Flora will soon hold her jubilee on earth ! 
And as spring advances and hee followed by 
summer, that season which more fully displays the 
beauties’ of Flora’s kingdom, with what li ght and 
joyous hearts we walk amid those beauties, watch 
the unfolding leaf, or gather to ourselves those gems 
with which the Queen of Flowers delights to deck 
her crown ! 
Flowers are the smiles of nature, and earth would 
seem a desert without them. How profuse is na- 
ture in the bestowment of her smiles! They are 
seen on every hill-side and in every valley; they 
cheer the traveller on his public way, and the her- 
mit in his seclusion. Wherever the light of day 
reaches, you will find them, and none so poor they 
cannot possess them. They grew first in Paradise, 
and bring to our view more yividly than any thing 
else the beauties of Eden. 




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INTRODUCTION. 
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