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Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 19, Issue 1485, 20 November 1872, Page 3

cruel to give so much and not give a little more. We have so splendid a national literature that it is such a heritage to every man and woman bearing the English name that too many efforts cannot be made to popularise the study of it. In what workman's cottage do we find a copy of Milton, Shakespeare, or Goldsmith 1 At what harvest homes are the songs of the. reapers and their wives culled from the garden of English ballad poetry ? Our coachmen and ladies' maids do not spend their leisure iu leading Miss Austin or Charles Dickens ; they prefer the highly-seasoned romance of the penny journals, the dream books, and other unwholesome reading provided far them by a mysterious race of writers who, for aught we know, may live under ground, so entirely are they hidden from sight.

A gentleman amateur floriculturist, well known in Wimbledon, has suc» ceeded in raising a purely new species of geranium; and though it may not, perhaps, be thought as valuable as the celebrated black tulip of tulipomania days, yet such is its rarity that he estimates its worth ai £I,OOO, and hopes to make at least that sum. out of it. The precious plant is of pure white—stem, leaves, and flowers. It, looks almost like wax, and is of a bright transparency. Never *as anything of the kind heard of before among floriculturists; and no doubt, if the owner is fortunate enough to propagate the species, there will be; a great demand for it.