"Q. Flowers, wherefore do ye bloom? A. We strew the pathway to the tomb.* - Jos. Montgomery.

From earliest childhood to extreme old age flowers form one of our most innocent, as well as most delightful, sources of enjoyment, pure and unsullied by aught of the grossness that mingles with more animal pleasures. The first dawning of our intellectual nature may be dated from the moments when the babe stretches forth its tiny hand to grasp the flowers in its nurse's bosom. The unborn sense of the beautiful in form and color, springs to life in the soul of the child; it awakens at once to the enjoyments of a new and pleasurable sensation.

I love to see an innocent child playing with flowers - fresh, fair flowers - meet emblems at once of its beauty and its frailty - for "he cometh up and is cut down as a flower of the field." How charming are the verses of our old English poet, addressed to Daffodils - and those "To Blossoms." They are so beautiful in their sweet simplicity, that I will quote them, assured that those who know them will re-read with pleasure such lines; and those who never read, will read them again and again, as I have done ever since I was a child.

"Fair daffodils we weep to see Thee haste away so soon".