Page:Scenes in my Native Land.pdf/171

Rh ment. My custom, for a few years past, has been to rise in summer at half-past four, reaching the garden, after breakfast, at six, and regulating my stay there, so as to return precisely at nine, ready to attend to the business of my store."

Can any stronger example be adduced, that a love of flowers, when under the control of a spirit of order and punctuality, may be an appropriate relaxation from the pressure of mercantile care, and perfectly consistent with its prosperous pursuit? May it not also be fraught with collateral benefits of a still higher order? Suppose only the habit of early rising, to be thus acquired and confirmed. What an important addition would two or three hours daily, be to the actual limits of a brief span of life.

Horticulture has long been pronounced by physiologists, salutary to health, and cheerfulness of spirits; and if he who devotes a portion of his leisure to the nurture of the lovely things of nature, benefits himself, he who beautifies a garden for the eye of the community, should surely be counted a public benefactor. He instils into the bosom of the care-worn, the sorrowful, or the selfish, thoughts that heal like a medicine. He cheers the languid, desponding invalid, and brightens the eye of the child, with a more intense happiness.

If simply the admiration of plants and flowers, has a tendency to refine the character, their actual culture must have a more powerful and abiding