PROPOSED FLORAL AND HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1178, 15 May 1884, Page 3

PROPOSED FLORAL AND HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —I observed with pleasure a letter in your columns of Tuesday last urging the establishment of a Floral and Horticultural Society in Geraldine, and I fully bear out the writer’s remarks. Of the manifold means of whiling away an occasional spare hour of leisure after a day’s fatigue at our ordinary occupations, the cultivation and rearing of flowers is one of the most healtny, both in its refining influence on the person engaged in the work and its beautifying effects on all its surroundings. To all, the means of indulging in this ennobling pastime is within easy reach. To farmers and othere it is particularly accessible ; for no matter how economic a farmer may be in the distribution and cultivation of his land, a waste spot generally remains untilled in some forgotten nook convenient to the house which can readily be turned into flowerbeds, and thereby be made to enliven and decorate both the house and farm. In the same way a cottage with its small patch of ground surrounding it may, by the exercise of an occasional half hour in the early part of the morning and the evening, be converted into a perfect elysium, not only adding to the social comfort of its inmates, but also enhancing the actual value of the cottage itself, and contributing to the respectability of the whole neighborhood. Considering the numerous advantages accruing from the culture of flowers, even on a small scale, and the facility with which seeds and cuttings can be obtained now-a-days, there is no obstacle opposed to the practice becoming general throughout this highly favored district, and I do hope, sir, that the proposal to establish a society that will encourage the culture of the best of God’s gifts will meet with favor at the hands of your readers,—l am, etc., Flora.